When you want to achieve an important goal, it often helps to set a deadline.
So how about a deadline of 16 days?
The goal? To help end violence against women.
We know it’s a tall order, so don’t worry, you’re not in it alone! Women and organizations around the world will be be participating in the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign.
In my yearbook, I wrote about my teacher, Ms. Jones. She taught me to be just who I am and to not hide the things I’m good at. In her class, we made T-shirts about being grateful. She said when she saw me in my shirt, standing proud and tall, it inspired her to want to get everybody to be proud of who they are.
She came up with an idea to do a workshop called “As We Are”, which I got to participate in. It was a great experience. In the workshop, we started by looking at T-shirts with bad messages about women. For example, one said “Allergic to Algebra.” That offended me because I really like math. It upset me to see a girl wearing that and thinking she’s not allowed to be good at math because it’s “for boys.”
What happens when you put girls in charge of the messages on their clothing?
All kinds of amazing things, discovered Lorna Jones, an elementary-school teacher in Toronto.
Lorna has watched girls develop confidence, awareness, creativity, and connection through the As We Are T-shirt project, which she developed with the support of Canadian Women’s Foundation and The W. Garfield Weston Foundation.
In As We Are workshops, girls age 9 to 13 are encouraged to analyze the messages they see in both clothing and in the media. Then, they get to brainstorm together and design T-shirts bearing positive messages.
The theme of our latest issue of SHE magazine is empowered decisions. So we invited members of the Canadian Women’s Foundation community to tell us about a decision that made them feel bold, courageous, and independent!
Take a look, be inspired, then tell us about your own empowered decision in the comments section!
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