Pretty dunce nah wear!

AS far as guidance counsellor Rackeisha Dunn is concerned, the reliance of women on just their pretty looks to attract men has become outdated, as modern-day bachelors are more interested in empowered women who can become contributing partners.

“Pretty dunce naa wear,” Dunn told a group of young women who were beneficiaries of a 10-week gender empowerment programme hosted by the National Family Planning Board (NFPB) in Parade Gardens, Central Kingston, recently.

“You coulda hot till you turn up and turn over, it’s just not wearing anymore,” she said.

The UN-funded workshop was aimed at improving the awareness of HIV and the sexual and reproductive health of adolescent girls and young women through empowerment and reduction of gender inequality. Approximately 26 women between the ages of 16 to 24 years old made up the third cohort of the project which saw representatives from the NFPB hosting sessions with them twice weekly at the nearby First Missionary Church on East Street.

Dunn is employed at the Women’s Centre of Jamaica Foundation where she advises teen pregnant girls on a regular basis. She did not hold any punches as she spoke to the gender empowerment workshop participants and their invited guests during their graduation ceremony at the Jamaica Conference Centre last week Thursday. “You have to go out there and you have to get something in your head. You have to be able to get a good job and if you want to have your own business, nothing is wrong with that,” she said.

“Nowadays men are saying they want partners; they want somebody that can bring something to the table; somebody that can add to them. So if they have a million dollars, they want to know that you have something to put on their million to make it more,” she advised.

But while bringing attention to the change in men’s appetites as it relates to relationships, Dunn also warned women not to shortchange themselves.

“People would want you to say no to yourself and yes to them. Don’t get me wrong, nothing is wrong with being selfless, but you cannot get up every day and put people in front of you, even as it relates to your boyfriend. They have their likes and when you have your two, three, four, five, six, seven children and you are going on, you need to stop. You have to know when to stop,” she urged.

“You have to look out for yourself. I kid you not, you have your boyfriend and you are there and you are not elevating and even if you are together for 10 years, I tell you, he will leave out of your bed and get married to a woman the next day and have you crying and bawling and depressed,” she said.

She continued: “You cannot have that for yourself, you have to look out for yourself. You cannot be putting your boyfriends before you all the time and when he says okay, ‘open your legs’, you just open it like that. You have to have a mind of your own.”

Parade Gardens was the third stop for the NFPB team under the year-long gender empowerment project. More than 100 women, their partners and their parents were reached through the project which was also hosted in the Jones Town/Rema community in Kingston and the Golden Grove area in St Thomas.

The project saw the young women being educated on issues such as self-esteem, conflict management, goal setting, gendered approaches to human rights and contraceptive methods under the guidance of the project’s manager Juliet Hall and the NFPB’s youth mentorship officer Nicolene Nelson in partnership with facilitators from other organisations. Given the success of the programme, UN Women has committed to financing its expansion in other inner-city and rural communities, come 2016.

In her address during the recent graduation ceremony for the Parade Gardens cohort, executive director of the NFPB, Dr Denise Chevannes, told the young women that she doesn’t want to hear anything but success from them going forward.

“I want to hear one year from now that you went back to school [and] that you got your subjects,” she said.

“When you go back to school and get your job, then you can decide for yourselves if, when, and how many children to have,” she encouraged.