LocationsStepping into Leadership: Students Experience the United Nations During Girls Takeover Day
August 14, 2026
Girls from four Lilongwe schools spent the day experiencing professional and leadership spaces across the United Nations in Malawi.
For one day in Lilongwe, schoolgirls moved beyond hearing about leadership to experiencing it, shadowing United Nations professionals, asking questions and seeing, up close, the careers and possibilities that could shape their own futures.
At 17, Vanessa Chilipakasu thought she understood communications. There were cameras, photographs, videos and content. Then she spent a morning inside the Communications Unit at UNDP Malawi.
“I learnt that communication is not always about media. It is not always about photos, videos and content. It is also about how we communicate and share things that people do not know,” said Vanessa, a student at Mkhwichi Secondary School.
The experience also changed the way she understood UNDP itself.
“I have been really inspired and motivated today because the experience opened up something I did not know about UNDP."Vanessa Chilipakhasu, 17, Mkhwichi Secondary School.
“I have been really inspired and motivated today because the experience opened up something I did not know about UNDP,” she said.
By the end of the morning, an institution that had once seemed distant had become a place she could imagine herself working in.
“I am actually planning to be there in a couple of years to come.”
That shift, from looking at an institution from the outside to beginning to imagine oneself inside it, was at the heart of Girls Takeover Day, held in Lilongwe on 13 August 2026.
Girls from Chipasula Secondary School, Stepping Stones School, and Mkhwichi Primary and Secondary School spent the day in professional and leadership spaces across the United Nations in Malawi, shadowing staff from UNDP, UN Women, UNICEF and UNFPA, before gathering at the Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator for an afternoon of reflection and engagement with senior UN leaders.
The programme was deliberately designed around exposure and participation. After welcome remarks, girls were allocated to different offices for almost three hours of job-shadowing and leadership exposure. In the afternoon, they reflected on what they had learnt about the United Nations, which careers had inspired them, whether the experience had influenced their ambitions, and what they would take back to their schools and communities.
For girls whose ambitions are still taking shape, the idea was simple: sometimes possibility becomes clearer when you can see it up close.
From aspiration to exposure
The inaugural Girls Takeover Day forms part of the NextGen Women: Learning, Leading, Transforming Our Future inter-generational leadership campaign, a joint initiative of the United Nations Gender Theme Group in Malawi.
Jointly convened by UNDP, UN Women, UNICEF and UNFPA, with support from the Resident Coordinator’s Office, the campaign seeks to inspire and empower adolescent girls through mentorship, professional exposure and direct engagement with leaders. Its objectives include building confidence and aspirations, increasing awareness of leadership and career opportunities, and connecting girls with women leaders and supportive male champions.
The initiative responds to barriers that continue to limit opportunities for many girls, including school dropout, child marriage, teenage pregnancy, limited mentorship and inadequate career guidance. These challenges contribute to the underrepresentation of women in leadership across public institutions, politics, the private sector and the United Nations system.
Rather than simply telling girls that leadership is possible, the programme places them inside the spaces where careers are built, decisions are made, and professional relationships take shape.
Sarah Misoya says she learnt that girls can do what men can do.
For Sarah Misoya, a Form Four student from Chipasula Secondary School, that meant spending part of the morning with UNDP Malawi.
“I learnt that, as girls, we can do what men can do,” Sarah said. “I also learnt that we should trust in our talents.”
Sarah wants to become a civil engineer and build infrastructure for Malawi. Telling people's stories through a a journalism career is another possibility.
“Right now, I want to be an engineer. If that does not work out, I want to be a journalist.”
Her answer captured something the programme was designed to encourage not certainty about a single future, but confidence that there can be more than one path towards it.
Rejoice Chitsulo says seeing women working within the United Nations strengthened her belief in what women can contribute and achieve, despite the obstacles they may face.
What changes when girls enter the room?
At the centre of the Girls Takeover concept is a straightforward theory: when girls are exposed to leaders, professional environments and inter-generational mentorship, they are more likely to develop stronger confidence, leadership aspirations and motivation to pursue education and career opportunities.
For Rejoice Chitsulo, 15, from Chipasula Secondary School, that exposure happened at UNFPA.
“They really inspired me,” she said. “They told me that although we come from different places or countries, we can still make a change and contribute to development.”
One message stayed with her.
“No matter how hard it is, I must keep going. The sky is not the limit. I must aim higher and higher.”
Seeing women working within the United Nations also strengthened her sense of what women can contribute despite the obstacles they may face.
“It inspired me to see that women can make a difference despite the challenges they experience in their communities,” she said. “It inspired me to also make a change for other women where I come from.”
That movement, from personal ambition to a sense of responsibility towards others, is part of what the initiative hopes to nurture: girls who see themselves not only as future professionals, but as people capable of influencing their schools, communities and country.
“I can do this. I can lead. I can make a difference. The future is full of possibilities.”
UNDP Resident Representative, Fenella Frost (third from left).
“I can do this. I can lead.”
Welcoming girls to UNDP Malawi, UNDP Resident Representative Fenella Frost spoke about the barriers that still prevent many girls from realising their potential.
“Some girls have to get married at a very young age, and some have children very young. That means they do not have the opportunity to achieve all their dreams,” she said.
But her message also challenged the girls to think beyond their own success.
“I hope that when you go back to your schools, homes, churches or mosques, you can become champions for girls—not just for yourselves, but also for the other girls around you.”
Before they moved into the offices where they would spend the morning, Frost left them with four statements:
“I can do this. I can lead. I can make a difference. The future is full of possibilities.”
Christobel Ngwira, 11, says the visit inspired her to see education as a pathway to greater opportunities for girls.
For Christobel Ngwira, an 11-year-old Standard Eight learner at Stepping Stones School, the visit drew her attention to education and the opportunities available to other girls.
“I was very inspired by the young women helping girls to access quality education,” she said.
“I learnt that there are many children in Malawi who need quality education, and that these organisations are helping them access it and empowering young women and girls to pursue their dreams.”
Mzati Muheziwa, 11, says her UNICEF visit inspired her dream of becoming an entrepreneur and CEO.
At 11, imagining the CEO’s office
Some ambitions were already strikingly clear. Mzati Muheziwa, an 11-year-old learner from Mkhwichi Primary School, visited UNICEF.
“In future, I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to become a CEO,” she said.
She also spoke about the possibility of one day working for UNICEF.
“I hope that in the future I can work at UNICEF so that I can also help people in need.”
Mzati said she planned to tell her family about what she had seen. It was a small detail, but an important one. The Girls Takeover concept envisages learning extending beyond the participants themselves, with girls taking lessons back to their peers, schools and communities.
Future phases of the campaign are expected to include mentorship circles, national leadership dialogues, storytelling, youth innovation initiatives, career coaching and digital engagement platforms for girls.
“Today is much more than a visit. It is an opportunity for you to see what is possible."UN Resident Coordinator Rebecca Adda-Dontoh
UN Resident Coordinator Rebecca Adda-Dontoh encouraged the girls to turn their learning into action.
Leadership made visible
By afternoon, the girls had moved from individual UN agencies to the Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator.
There, the programme shifted from observation to reflection.
What had surprised them? Which professional roles had caught their attention? Had their understanding of the United Nations changed? What would they take back to their schools? And how could girls themselves contribute to solving problems in their communities? United Nations Resident Coordinator Rebecca Adda-Dontoh invited them to think of the day as more than a tour of UN offices.
“Today is much more than a visit. It is an opportunity for you to see what is possible,” she said. “It is about opening doors, broadening your horizons and helping you believe that leadership is not for a selected few; it is for every girl who is willing to dream, work hard and never give up.”
She reminded the girls that the women they had met had also travelled difficult roads, facing obstacles, setbacks and disappointment, but continuing with their education and ambitions.
Then she connected those individual journeys to Malawi’s wider development.
“Malawi needs your ideas, your talents, your innovative ideas and your voice.”
The Girls Takeover initiative contributes to wider United Nations efforts to advance gender equality and girls’ leadership, including Sustainable Development Goal 5 on Gender Equality, and is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2024–2028, Malawi 2063 and national gender priorities.
Those frameworks speak the language of policy and development. On this particular Thursday in Lilongwe, however, they became personal.
They looked like an 11-year-old imagining herself as a CEO. A Form Four student discovering that communications could be part of her future. A 15-year-old deciding that the sky should not be her limit. A 17-year-old walking into a United Nations office she once barely understood and leaving able to imagine herself working there.
At the end of the day, Adda-Dontoh left the girls with a final message:
“I hope you leave believing that your dreams are valid, that your voice matters and that your future is bright.”
For an initiative built around opening doors, perhaps that is where the significance lies: not in deciding what each girl will eventually become, but in making sure she has seen enough of what is possible to know that she can become something.
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