Selmor in Canada
ONE ambassador, Selmor Mtukudzi, is in Canada for the International Women’s Day Celebrations tomorrow.
Her mission on behalf of the international campaigning and advocacy organisation is to meet Canadian dignitaries including Bob Hault — Chair of Foreign Affairs Committee, Mike Lake — MNCH opposition critic and MP, David Morrison — Assistant Deputy Minister for the Americas, Julie Dzerowicz — MP for Devenport and Ahmed Hussen — Minister of Immigration, whom she will speak to about the importance of educating the girl child.
About 130 million girls around the world are being denied access to good education with Canada contributing two cents per Canadian per day to global education.
“Poverty hits harder on girls than boys and because poverty is sexist, most of those girls are in the world’s poorest countries,” said Selmor. “When we deny girls education, we deny our countries the leaders we need to grow and prosper. Getting girls in school is one of the most effective ways we can fight extreme poverty. Educating every girl is good for everyone.”
In 2015, Selmor collaborated with seven other African stars including Judith Sephuma, Vanessa Mdee, Omotola and Yemi Alade, to record the song Strong Girl for the ONE campaign #PovertyIsSexiest. This saw her attend the World Economic Forum, the Sadc conference and the UN conference to speak to world leaders about putting in place policies that support the empowerment of women and girls.
Later that year, she was joined by her male counterparts, Bono — U2 lead singer and founder of ONE, D’Banj, Diamond Platinumz and Banky W for a remix of Strong Girl showing that men were also in support of the campaign.
Other than that, Selmor was also instrumental in the passing of the “Electrify Africa” Bill in the US Senate in Washington DC, when she met US representatives, Congressman Ed Royce and Congressman Eliot Engel and added her voice encouraging the US government to partner with institutions in African countries to make electricity available easily.
This Bill states that it is US policy to partner with Sub Saharan African countries, international financial institutions and African regional economic committees, cooperatives and private sectors to promote access to power services to at least 50 million people in Sub Saharan Africa by 2020.