ReConnect Africa’s careers coach Helen Dupigny recently celebrated 10 years of delivering her award-winning Career Development Programme with an Awards evening that brought together former participants, industry representatives and a special celebrity.

In 1996, Helen Dupigny, a Sierra Leonean based in London, decided to take time out from lecturing within a Further Education college to reflect on her career direction and personal and professional goals.

After considerable introspection that she broke down into six steps of thinking and planning, Helen realised that the approach she had taken to identifying her skills and addressing the constraints to her self-development, could also work for others.  Inspired to share her learning, she created the Six Step Career Development programme.

Within two years, Helen succeeded in gaining approved centre status from Edexcel, a leading examinations organisation, and accreditation of the programme as a BTEC Award course. In 1997, Helen received the Candace Business Woman of the Year Award for the Career Development Programme.