The Leadership Programme (LP) consist of 2 main parts: the professional training sessions and research by the participants. Currently, the LP members are executing their ambitious researches. These studies have a focus on either one of these TopFem goals: ambition, empowerment, network, mentorship and leadership development. 

To give you an idea on what the LP members are investigating, you can gain some insights on what kind of research is being conducted and who the (young) women behind these projects are. This time, we interviewed duo Daphny Roggeveen and Jeanette van Ooij.

Daphny (29 years) and Jeanette (23 years) are two ambitious women who both joined this year’s TopFem Leadership Programme. Both ladies came into contact with TopFem via the chair of this year’s board: Fien van Rossum. Daphny knows Fien through her internship at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while Jeanette has been contacted by Fien via LinkedIn.

Jeanette is currently following the Master International Relations and Diplomacy at the Leiden University and loves to read, hockey and create things with needlework. After finishing her master, Jeanette aspires a carreer with a diplomatic touch. Either at a company (e.g. marketing, negotiation or getting contracts signed), with the government or with an international organisation. Jeanette believes that every leader should be emphatic. She believes that every leader should give attention to the people around them when necessary.

A true leader should be somebody who eventually takes the deciding which way to go – Jeanette

Daphny just finished her Master Law and Politics of International Security. Her ambition is to keep on learning, travel a lot and get to know other cultures. Daphny knows exactly what her dream job is. It should deal with geopolitics, global institutions, human rights, migration or conflict resolution. The work also should have a focus on Africa or the Middle East.

Most importantly, the job should involve a mission relating to achieve a more just and secure world. With this clear mission in mind, Daphny is currently looking for a job.

Due to my interdisciplinary and internationally oriented study program, I learned the importance of connecting different academic fields whilst studying the complexity of the world order – Daphny

Both Daphny and Jeanette share the same interests and both followed an international oriented social science study. While Daphny was looking for a research partner with knowledge about data analysis, Jeanette’s focus was on finding a partner who is interested to perform the study in an international context.

During the TopFem Leadership Programme introduction day, we already had a click – Jeanette

Daphny is currently traveling through Africa (Ghana, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso) together with her boyfriend. Given the fact that the duo want to perform a study with an international focus and that Daphny is visiting the English-speaking Ghana led them to the idea to perform their TopFem research in Ghana.

Women are less likely to obtain loans from private banks and more likely to receive credit from family members, traders, NGOs, and the government – Social Institutions & Gender Index 2017

The study, named “(Wo)Men in Ghana”, will focus on whether or not there is a gender-based difference in Ghana regarding the usage of social and economic capital. Social capital is for example asking your family for money, while economic capital is bank financing. Daphny and Jeanette hypothesized that women in Ghana use different forms of capital than men when pursuing a certain goal. To investigate this, Daphny will distribute a survey among the urban population of Accra on busy places like the market. Jeanette will then dive into the art of analysing the collected categorized data.

Despite your (study)background, you can always contribute to improve gender equality – Daphny

Their aim is to get a better idea what the size is of the problem and to write an article with advice toward the government of Ghana, but also towards any interested NGO (a.o. Amnesty International, Hivos). Hopefully, this study could be an interesting step towards gender equality in Ghana.