Georgina Mwaka Nawila

Mwaka Nawila Foundation, Zambia

Title: Guiding Adolescents and Young People Intentionally: Building Safe Spaces, Mentorship, and Leadership Pathways for Adolescent Girls and Young Women

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Biography

Georgina Mwaka Nawila is Executive Director of Mwaka Nawila Foundation, a Zambia based grassroots organization founded in 2020 and focused on strengthening the lives of adolescents and young people through health access, mentorship, education support, leadership development, and protection systems. Her work centers on adolescent girls and young women, HIV prevention and treatment access, youth safe spaces, and practical community grounded approaches that strengthen resilience and decision making. She has led youth focused interventions across multiple districts in Zambia and continues to advance models that position adolescents and young people as active contributors to stronger communities, healthier futures, and leadership.

Abstract

Adolescent girls and young women continue to experience preventable setbacks during one of the most formative stages of life, often not because potential is absent, but because consistent systems of guidance, protection, and structured support are missing. Across many communities, intervention begins when vulnerability has already deepened, after school disengagement, weakened confidence, social pressure, or health risk have already altered direction. This work examines how intentional support introduced early can change developmental outcomes for adolescent girls and young women.

Drawing from community based practice implemented through Mwaka Nawila Foundation in Zambia, this presentation reflects on structured interventions delivered in Lusaka, Kitwe, Chililabombwe, and Lufwanyama, where adolescent girls and young women face overlapping pressures linked to HIV exposure, interrupted education, weak mentorship structures, and limited protective spaces. The intervention model integrates youth friendly safe spaces, relational mentorship, life skills strengthening, leadership exposure, and linkage to health and psychosocial support.

Observed results show improved self-confidence, stronger decision making, increased participation in leadership platforms, greater openness toward health seeking behaviour, and improved ability among girls to navigate social pressure while remaining connected to future goals.

The work concludes that adolescent outcomes improve when communities stop responding only to visible crisis and begin building systems that strengthen girls before vulnerability becomes defining. Women’s development becomes more sustainable when adolescence is treated as a deliberate stage for shaping future leadership, responsibility, and contribution.