"Everyone said I couldn't be a mechanic, but I can be whatever I want".

Dulce Santos, 18, is a student and the first female mechanic in Angoche, northern Mozambique. Today, with the income from her business, she pays for her studies and supports her family. But until she managed to set up her motorcycle workshop, Dulce faced many limiting beliefs about gender roles.

'Here, they say there are men's and women's professions. And I never wanted any profession that they said were the A'rightA' ones for women," Dulce explains. "I always liked motorbikes and wanted to know how to fix them."

In Mozambique, the agriculture sector employs 90 per cent of working-age women and girls (Forum Mulher, 2019). From an early age, girls are involved in domestic chores and farming the family crops. With the support of Livaningo, one of the Civil Society Organizations partnering with the Spotlight Initiative on economic empowerment interventions and increasing financial literacy, Dulce was able to select a different path. She had access to training in mechanics and the materials she needed to start her business.

"I felt strong, I finally had the opportunity to choose, and get the training and materials I needed to be a mechanic. I wanted to prove to all men, but especially women, that we could do what we like. Everyone said I couldn't be a mechanic, but I can be anything I want," Dulce says proudly.

"I wanted to prove to all men, but especially women, that we could do what we like".

In 2021 alone, the Spotlight Initiative partnered with more than 20 civil society organizations to help more than 9,000 girls and women learn new trades and how to run businesses.

Dulce works in the morning in her motorcycle workshop, which she shares with five other colleagues, and studies in the afternoon. Being a woman, she was initially discriminated against in her profession, and only with time and her colleagues' support has she managed to establish her business.

"In the beginning, I had almost no clients. They said they didn't want a woman fixing their bikes, that it wouldn't look good. I decided to be patient. Over time, clients began to arrive, and today it makes no difference to them that I am a woman. They have seen my work and realized that we...