I Am a Woman

Who is a woman?

She starts of as a tiny little baby girl, dresses in pink or floral dresses.

As she starts to sit, she is commissioned into her future life as a woman. She is taught how to sit properly ‘as a woman’.

As she starts to walk, she starts noticing her surrounding; she starts picking up things  from her mother. She starts playing around with utensils associated with women.

As a young school girl, she starts noticing colours, knows how to mix and match clothes, she starts using accessories in her hair, wears bangles and pays attention to her looks.

She is slowly becoming a woman.

In school she works hard, despite facing pressures from men and society that negatively affect young girls and young women. As she sees other girls give up and succumb to the pressure she works hard to meet her dreams.

From her surrounding she learns strong life lessons that will carry her through as she grows up. Her experiences build her and make her who she is. As she fights her way through life’s challenges, she becomes a woman. A woman of integrity, a woman of strength, a woman full of courage and enthusiasm to face life yes as a woman.

She works hard to achieve her goals, when she gets there, after tears and sweat, heartache and disappointments, she remains a woman. Soft at heart but strong in mind, she carries a lot of pain and hurt from her past but she works hard to face the future with joy and does not lose focus of her vision.

Her vision is to be a woman who makes a difference. And no matter what she faces in life, she remains a woman.

This may be every womans’ dream, but there are challenges that can destroy this dream.

POVERTY. She does not know anything about girls dresses, colours and accessories.

Since she was born all she has known is a little cloth that she uses to cover herself.

 If she wears any clothes or dresses, it's either from donations, or what she picked up from the trash.

She would like to go to school like the other girls but she can’t because she has no clothes, no food, no resources, she has to help her parents to raise money to feed the family.

She is either sold as a child slave, sent to big cities to work as a nanny, or works in the farms.

She misses out on school.

She becomes a victim of rape, child molestation, war victim and child labour.

Her dreams are shattered, her dignity is lost, she remains a broken woman.

She loses her self esteem and confidence, she faces life without hope, all she knows is her pain. She is married off quickly to relieve the burden on her family but at the cost of her brighter future.

Let us work together to give young girls a chance so that they can be women of self esteem and strength. Let us help these girls to be women of the future, women who will make a difference and women who will face their future with hope.