Name: Georgie Phillips
Grade: Year 12
Age: 17 Years
School: Roma State College
Hometown and State: Mitchell, Queensland
LIFTING US UP – How can women and girls empower each other and their communities in times of uncertainty and change?
Empowerment. It’s a difficult word. With a difficult meaning. Indeed, it’s a word with many meanings. To empower someone could be to give them strength, confidence, ensuring their rights are given to them, and allowing them to be in charge of themselves. Empowerment may also mean authority, however, in a case of change, much like what is happening today, every day, empowerment can also be strength. It is the confidence to be oneself. For a person to think, ‘Happy Thoughts’ and to express them. Empowerment is to inspire and to be inspired. It is magic!
In a time of uncertainty, empowerment is vital in ensuring the other side of darkness is coming, or at least, is close. As you’ve probably heard many times, ‘There’s always light at the end of the tunnel.’ Uncertainty is one key aspect that makes us believe that maybe there is no light, that maybe It’ll always be a time of darkness. Uncertainty can cause thoughts anxiety and can diminish self-love. This darkness may be due to the brain reacting to particular situations by never taking a break. By overthinking. It is said that girls compete, and women are hateful and envious toward one another. Why don’t women and girls empower each other? As the well known meme tells us, we need to ‘be the woman who straightens another woman’s crown, without telling her it was crooked’. The world is forever changing, as are we. But uncertainty may stop us from evolving as best we can. For improvement to happen, we need to be empowered.
Empowerment of women can be divided into five main sections: social, educational, economic, political, and psychological. As change occurs in every sector of a female’s life, achieving greatness in all of these parts may be difficult, yet it is still possible. Educational empowerment means being exposed to educational opportunities, something that we take for granted in our great nation. As well, psychological empowerment evokes the ideal of believing in oneself. To be economically empowered is to be paid an equivalent wage and, while women have made great strides in this, there is still some work to do. Politically, women need to step up to serve the community. We are often reluctant. Social empowerment has been the area where change has been the greatest. Women are cementing their place in society and have paved the way for young girls today to be empowered and strive to do whatever they wish.
Empowering someone involves many qualities, sometimes in quite a high quantity. To be generous, focused, forgiving and trusting are ways of empowering someone along with the ability to listen intently, praise and encourage. To make the other person feel equal, generally by making time for them, and not worrying about yourself or ‘setting your own ego aside’ and finally providing (as best as possible) a way for them to grow and thrive – to be empowered and then to empower. It’s about planting a seed of self worth and then harvesting the crop.
And the harvest will be so worth it. An empowered community in an uncertain time of change is what is needed. Because, ‘when women empower each other, that’s when magic happens’.