my vision of my voice through voice of our future applicants

I got to learn about the voice of our future applicants from a former participant who posted the opportunity of Facebook and encouraged all grass root women to apply since it provides an undeniably significant forum for our voices to be heard. The quest to see women at the helm of decision-making has always been a motivating factor for me to involve in gender-sensitive activities so I decided to apply as l saw this as a place to start telling my own story. I am not oblivious to the poor representation of women at decision-making tables even though many of the discussions held have far-reaching repercussions on women than on men. Visiting the blog and getting to see women share their ideas, opinions, stories and also the reality of their communities is so inspiring. I have always been interested in gender-sensitive issues and have worked in several communities in improving the welfare of women especially in communities with widowhood practices.
This forum is going to provide me with a chance to live my dreams. I have always nurtured the dream of participating and involving in peace and conflict issues especially in my continent (Africa) considering the fact that there is a low participation of women when it comes to discourse on peace, security and conflict management processes. This is a driving factor as women suffer disproportionately in conflicts but their views are not taken into consideration when it comes to post-reconstruction talks. Voice of our future will provide me with the unique opportunity to interact with women from different cultural backgrounds and get an insight into their communities. It also creates an enabling environment for ideas that are grounded in gender realities which is going to help build my capacity. This is going to help me to share these empowering ideas and have the opportunity to interact with role models when it comes to promotion of women. My short-term goals involve undergoing a formal training in peace, security and development since I intend to involve myself in peace and security discourse so as to represent the voices of women. This I intend to do under the auspices of an international organisation, my government or both. The training offered by voice of the future is going to build my capacity and keep me abreast with the pertinent issues concerning the woman so I can easily bring these to the knowledge of decision-makers, in other words represent their interest. My long-term goals involve founding a local NGO that is going to protect and reinforce the rights of the woman as well as build their capacity to take up constructive roles in the society. This training is going to expand my knowledge base to develop transformational ideas that can be nurtured to create visions of change.