While women’s empowerment is certainly a global movement, let’s not forget that small local changes are equally empowering.
In order to assist women and girls to thrive in your community you need to provide equal opportunities, provide more choice and limit restrictions.
Here are some proven ideas and practical examples you can use to impact change.
1. Make it easier to access education and skills Learning
Education is a foundation of individual empowerment. Fund initiatives to keep girls in school and support women with access to vocational training, literacy education, and in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM). You can help to close the gender gap and provide opportunities through tutoring, advocating for scholarships or supporting local initiatives that address girl’s education.
2. Support and Mentor Girls and Women in the Community
Mentoring changes lives. Volunteer with an organization like Big Brothers Big Sisters, or even a women’s organization in your community to be a mentor. Share what you have learned, provide guidance and support young women to gain confidence.
3. Support women to start their own ventures
It is crucial to offer people economic empowerment. You can support women-owned businesses in your community by purchasing from them, talking about them, or providing them with microloans, goods or services to develop. There are organizations and groups like YWCA’s Women’s Empowerment 360° that empower women to develop and create thriving businesses that create jobs and are sustainable and financially self-sufficient.
4. Advocate for equal rights and representation
Advocate for laws that pay women the same as men, provide protection from gender-based violence, and guarantee women are represented in leadership. Get people in your community and your community at large to support women who are candidates for office and demand equal treatment for men and women in schools, hospitals, and the workforce. Join or initiate campaigns that challenge negative gender stereotypes and get everyone involved in decision making.
5. Support women and girls in crisis
Violence, trafficking or forced migration is a circumstance many women find themselves in. You can help women in crisis by volunteering or donating money to organizations that provide counseling, legal support, safe houses or shelters, and health care to women. By donating your time or resources you can help break cycles of violence, improve the lives of survivors.
6. Recognize and reduce unpaid care work
Women do most of the unpaid care work, so promoting community services to help with child care, flexible work options, and shared or split work on caregiving tasks is very useful in our work and value-sharing more equitably at home or in the work sphere.
7. Bring women and girls into spaces and provide support
You can provide spaces for women and girls to feel heard, felt valued, and ensure that they felt safe. Saying thank you, celebrating achievements and encouraging people to use their voices for gender equality are all benevolent ways of elevating people. Even offering a public applause or a simple thank you note might seem trivial but can make a real change in encouraging a community spirit or building up a person’s confidence.
8. Engage in and support empower initiatives
Join a women’s empowerment program locally or internationally. Sharing your time and expertise can dramatically impact the lives of women in any way, but with programs engaging with matters like education and health sessions or helping women-owned businesses can fully transform lives and help educate, empower, and assist women. Many organizations helps women and allows them the opportunity to volunteer back into their communities or abroad on issues focusing on education, health, and empowering economic development.
To allow women to gain agency in your community, you’ll need to actively work on education, mentoring, lobbying and support. We can all improve the future for all by coming together and breaking down barriers and opening new paths. Empowering women empowers us all, and your contributions can be the launchpad to sustainable change.
