When Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, she was writing to a friend about how to raise a daughter. It was honest, brave, and the kind of writing that makes you feel seen. That book inspired this one.
On the 24th of May 2026, my daughter Maame Tiwaa turns fourteen. At eleven, she wrote a book and won an award for it. At twelve, she won the Appenteg 1001 Story Writing Project 2023, organised by Edify Ghana, for a piece she titled ‘’Education is the Key to Success She was not yet a teenager when the world acknowledged she had something to say.
This column is for her, and for every girl reading this, the girl in Tamale reading by torchlight, the girl in Kumasi told she is too loud, the girl in Accra already being asked when she will marry. Fourteen truths. One for every year of her life.
- Know the world as It Is
One in three women globally will experience physical or sexual violence in her lifetime, according to UN Women. UNESCO reports that 129 million girls are currently out of school — not because they are not brilliant, but because the world has decided girls matter less. The World Economic Forum estimates it will take over 130 years to close the gender gap at the current pace. Know this. Not so you are afraid, but so you are never naive.
- Learn the names of the women who fought for you
You did not arrive at your school desk by accident. Mary Wollstonecraft argued for women’s education in 1792 when the idea was considered ridiculous. Wangari Maathai of Kenya won the Nobel Peace Prize connecting women’s rights to democracy. In Ghana, Ama Ata Aidoo wrote Ghanaian women into stories that mattered. Adelaide Casely-Hayford ran a school for girls in West Africa in the early 1900s because she understood that education was liberation. These women did not know your name. They worked for you anyway.
- Read. Then write.
A girl who reads cannot be easily lied to. She has context. She has comparison. She has imagination. Read Chimamanda, read Ama Ata Aidoo, read Maya Angelou. Read the news. Read things that disagree with you. Read science, law, history, and stories from countries you will never visit. And write you have already proved you can. Do not stop.
- Have a voice and use It
You will be told, in ways direct and indirect, to be quieter. Boys will speak over you. Your idea will be ignored and then repeated by someone else and suddenly it is brilliant. Research shows that women and girls self-censor far more in group settings, waiting to be certain before speaking while others speak when they are only forty per cent sure. Your voice does not need to wait for perfection. Say what you think. Ask questions. Disagree respectfully. The most important voice in any room is the one willing to speak first.
- Your education is your right, not a gift
Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to education. And yet, in practice, girls’ education is still treated as expendable the first thing cut when money is tight, the sacrifice a girl makes so her brother can go further. Do not accept that arrangement. Your mind deserves every resource your family, your school, and your country can provide. Work hard not to prove yourself, but because effort builds you.
- Build real friendships
There is a lie told to girls early: that other girls are your competition. That lie is convenient for a world that benefits when women do not organise or protect each other. Reject it. Choose friends who challenge you and celebrate you, who tell you when you are wrong and show up when you are sad, who are genuinely happy when you succeed. If someone only feels good when you are doing badly, that is not friendship. You are allowed to walk away.
- Practise sisterhood
Sisterhood means that even a girl you do not know personally deserves your care. You do not join the crowd mocking her. You do not share her secrets for entertainment. You stand up when something wrong is being done, even when it is uncomfortable. And the older women around you your teachers, the women in your community who have survived and built and stayed ask them questions. Listen. They carry knowledge no curriculum can teach. When you succeed, reach back.
- Be shameless
Shame is one of the most effective tools used to keep women in one place, frozen, unable to reach for what they want. Shame about your ambition, your opinions, your body, your desires. I am telling you: be shameless. Not reckless shameless. If you want to be a CEO, a surgeon, a president, a writer, say so. Do not make yourself small so the people around you feel comfortable. The women who changed this country did not get there by being modest about their capabilities. They knocked on doors. When doors were slammed, they knocked again.
- Go for it even when you are afraid
Fear is not a sign to stop. It is a sign that something matters to you. You will be afraid before you submit writing, before an interview, before applying for something you are not sure you deserve. Go anyway. The regret of not trying is heavier than the sting of failing. And when no one believes in you because that day will come believe in yourself anyway. Belief is not arrogance. It is the most basic act of self-respect.
- Choose your career like you choose your life
Because that is exactly what you are doing. Do not choose safety because someone told you it was the only realistic option for a girl. Choose something that uses your gifts and challenges your mind. You can be a scientist, a lawyer, a diplomat, a filmmaker, an economist, a politician. Find your craft and pursue it until you know it deeply. Expertise is power that no one can take from you. And find mentors the world is full of women who have walked difficult roads and are willing to share the map.
- Be kind it is strength
Be kind to the girl struggling in class, to the teacher having a hard day, to the person everyone ignores. Not because it costs nothing sometimes it costs you social capital but because the way you treat people when no one is watching is who you actually are. Kindness is not weakness. You can be kind and still say no. You can be kind and still walk away. Be fierce and kind. Ambitious and generous. Both. All of it.
- Your body is yours
Consent is not complicated: it is enthusiastic, freely given, and can be withdrawn at any time. Anything less is not acceptable, no matter who the person is. Violence against women is not always visible coercion, manipulation, emotional abuse is also violence, and you are allowed to name them and leave. Take care of your body. You will face enormous pressure to look a certain way. That pressure is not wisdom. Your body is the place you live. Treat it accordingly.
- Look to the women who walked before you
Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings founded the 31st December Women’s Movement and ran for the presidency of Ghana more than once. H.E. Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang became Ghana’s first female Vice President after decades as a scholar and university leader. H.E. Lordina Mahama turned a ceremonial platform into a mission for maternal health and the vulnerable. H.E. Samira Bawumia built platforms around women’s economic inclusion in her own unapologetic voice. Emma Wenani, Chief Director of Global Media Alliance Group, reminds us that whoever shapes the narrative shapes the culture. These women do not all think alike. They do not need to. The point is that the door has been pushed open from many directions. Your job is to walk through it and hold it wider.
- You are not just a girl. You are a person
For most of recorded history, women have been defined in relation to others as daughters, wives, mothers, supporters of men’s ambitions. Their own dreams were treated as secondary, as inconvenience. You are a full person. You have the right to a rich interior life, to want things for yourself that have nothing to do with anyone else, to change your mind and grow in directions no one predicted. At fourteen, the world will try hard to tell you who you are. Listen carefully, then decide for yourself. You are the only one who will live inside your life. No one else should be writing its terms.
Maame Tiwaa, you were born into a world with very old problems. But you arrive with tools those before you did not always have. Use all of them. Be honest, be curious, be shameless in your ambition. Refuse to be small. You will not just survive. You will build something.
Happy birthday, Maame Tiwaa
The world needed you then. It needs you now. Go and be a whole person.
A dedication
To the women in Maame Tiwaa’s life who have shown her through their daily choices, their sacrifices, their craft, and their love what it looks like to be a whole person. Her aunties. Her teachers. Her mother’s circle. The women who came to every celebration and the ones who called on the hard days. You know who you are. She is watching, and she is learning. This piece belongs to you too.
Bridget Mensah believes the right story, told well, can change everything. A communications strategist and gender equality advocate with 10+ years in Ghana’s media industry, she uses words as tools for accountability and amplification particularly for women. She leads communications for the Network of Women in Broadcasting (NOWIB), She is the Head of Corporate Affairs at Ghana Digital Centres Ltd (GDCL)
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