Be The Change You Wish To See In The World ~ Empowering Our Girls!

Blog I wrote for Girls regarding Social Change:

Hi EMGirls/Jewels Girls!

I hope you all had a fabulous summer and are getting a great start to a new school year!

One of my favorite quotes is by Mahatma Gandhi which says “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. As a young girl and teen I struggled with feeling good about myself. I never tried new things or was the popular girl in school. I never believed in myself or my abilities. I carried all of these feeling through middle school, high school and even as an adult. I had little direction or knowledge of who I was and what I wanted out of life. I often looked to boys, things, or people to validate me and make me feel good about myself. One day I realized that I had to learn to love myself and change the way I felt about myself. It was a slow process trying to replace negative thoughts about myself with positive ones and really believing just how fabulous I was.. but I did and I am a VERY different person than I was before!!

Just like this quote says I had to change myself before I could make a difference in the world around me. As a result of my struggles as a girl and teenager I was able to change and now I want to make a difference in the lives of girls/women all around the world. It is my passion! I say all this to say that you each have a purpose and your lives make a difference to everyone around you and people you do not even know. You have the power to change your world! I know that you have seen things going on in your community, life, home and around the world that you want to change for the better. What better person to make a difference or make those changes than YOU!

By a show of virtual hands, how many of you have heard of the term ‘social change’? Well social change is when you tackle issues that are important to you and you figure out the root cause of that issue and tackle the cause through projects that create change. It is basically changing the cause of the issue not the effects. For example, I know that many girls and women suffer from low self esteem just like I did and I wanted to make a difference, create social change, so I became a part of the EMGirls community to make a difference. I also created Jewels, a empowerment group for pre-teen girls in my community in which we focus on building self esteem. This tackles the cause of low self esteem by celebrating the girls in the group and their talents and strengths through many different activities. So what issues are important to you?

Here are a few questions to get you started that I found on a wonderful website called Girls For A Change and can get you on a path to making a difference and bringing about a change in your community or around the globe!

What have you seen going on that makes you angry?

What could be better about where you live? Or what does your community deserve that they it’s not getting?

What have you seen happening at home, work or in your neighborhood that you feel is really unfair?
What have you seen or heard that you feel puts your friends, family or other girls and women in danger or at risk?

What do you never want to see happen again among your friends and family, or in your community, home or world?

What is your vision for your community or the world?

EMGirls, I would love for you to share your thoughts about these questions or share with us how you are already being a social change agent in your community! Let’s see how you can OWN your power and change your world!

For more information about social change or to learn about about girls just like you who are making a difference in their communities visit Girls For A Change at www.girlsforachange.org