Each October, around International Day of the Girl Child, Project LEAD brings teenage girls together and puts a different question in front of them. This year is the seventh edition, and the question is about choice: Her Choice. Her Future. Her Legacy.
Where It Began
In October 2020, on October 9 and 10, Project LEAD held its first online conference under the theme “Dear Teenage Self.” Professionals and founders spoke to a room of teenage girls about their own lives: the careers they built, the lessons that cost them something, the things they wish they had known sooner.
The question at the center was simple.
What would you tell your younger self?
For a girl still working out who she is, the answers carried weight. Hearing from women like Vera Kamtukule, Glowreeyah Braimah, and Dr Girish, who had already made the journey, showed her that the paths she was weighing were real, and that people had walked them, women from across the continent.
Five More Questions
That first edition looked back. The five that followed looked outward, then forward.
In 2021, “Education for Entrepreneurship” asked what a girl could build with what she learns. In 2022, “The Girl Child in a Digital World” turned to the technology reshaping how she learns and works. In 2023, “Breaking Barriers through Mentoring” put the people who guide her at the centre. In 2024, “Girls’ Vision for the Future” asked how she imagines her own tomorrow. In 2025, “Heritage in Her Hands: Preserving Culture through Hospitality, Travel & Tourism” turned to what she inherits: her culture, her stories and her sense of where she comes from.
Taken together, the themes show that no single conversation can prepare a girl for everything ahead. Education, enterprise, technology, mentorship, ambition, identity and culture each shape who she becomes. Each edition gave her something to carry: a skill, a guide, a vision, a root.
The Question Underneath
So the 2026 theme asks what happens next.
A girl can be taught, inspired and introduced to a hundred possibilities. At some point, though, someone has to decide. Information can show her that a path exists. Exposure can make it feel within reach. Only she can choose to walk it.
Her choices begin small. What will she study? Who will she learn from? What will she do when she fails? What values will she hold on to when no one is watching? They grow larger, until they amount to an answer to the biggest question of all: what kind of person does she want to become?
She doesn’t need all the answers yet. She does need to know the choice is hers.
Why Legacy Belongs In The Sentence
The theme moves from choice to future to legacy, and the order is deliberate.
A future is something a girl moves toward. A legacy is what remains once she has moved: the people she lifted, the work she built, the example she set, the doors she held open for the girl behind her. No one decides on a legacy in a single moment. It is the sum of many choices, made over many years, often before she realises they matter.
That brings the story full circle. In 2020, successful women looked back and told their younger selves what they had learned. In 2026, girls look ahead and consider what their older selves will say about the choices they are making now. And the heritage explored in 2025 now has a sequel: what she receives from those before her, and what she will leave to those who come after.
The Next Chapter
Seven editions in, the themes have changed, but the purpose hasn’t: to give girls room to think about the lives they want and the people they want to become. The 2026 conference asks them to take the next step.
What will she choose to do with what she knows, what she has lived, and what she believes is possible?
Her Choice. Her Future. Her Legacy.
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