Why should you #BeBoldForChange?
When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.
Not because of the tragedy behind it, but because of the years of struggle, misery and action that lie beneath it as an unbroken foundation.
In times of fear, our instinct tells us to run, but if we run, who will be left to fight?
Malala Yousafzai, is the educational campaigner from Swat Valley, Pakistan, who came to public attention by blogging for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban. Using the pen name Gul Makai, she often spoke about her family’s fight for girls’ education in her community. In October 2012 Malala was targeted by the Taliban and shot in the head as she was returning from school on a bus.
Making More Voices Heard
International Women’s Day is celebrated each year. It’s a day about equality. It’s a day about change. A chance to celebrate the equality that some of us do have, and a chance to take action for the women of the world who don’t. Many people in our world: men, women and non-binary alike still believe that women are the weaker sex. This view is archaic, and these people are not living in the modern age.
Change is happening. We see women in government, we see women as entrepreneurs, we see women holding some of the most important jobs in the world. We are finally breaking through into the big bad world that was once an exclusively male zone. However, although things are better, there is still along way to go.
For more International Women’s Day videos look here
Equality In The Classroom
One thing we are still stuck with is gender stereotypes, even in primary schools. I recently wrote a blog, highlighting the extreme importance of banishing these stereotypes. Children should not be made to feel as though their predetermined gender predetermines their future aspirations. We’ve experienced it in our adult lives, let’s not let them experience it in theirs. Teachers can make the biggest difference.
My job, as a primary school classroom teacher, is an amazing job. I am entrusted with young minds, to train and nurture and never let them believe that they can’t achieve.
My aim every single day with them is to teach them that it’s okay to be who you want to be. I teach my boys that it is okay to want to cry, it is okay to want to play with ‘girl’ toys and it is okay to want to write a story about love.
I teach my girls that they can speak up for something that they believe in, that they can want to be scientists or play football. The most important thing that I do is make sure that the other gender is aware of this too.
Teachers Can Make The Difference
As teachers, we have the ability to instil the belief that women can do anything that men can do. No young girl should be made to feel like she can’t achieve because of how she was born.
There is a suggestion that true equality will not be global until 2186 – who’s to say that teachers can’t be the moving force behind reducing this time by incredible margins?
Be that teacher that creates a movement, a shift in the eyes of children to see that what is happening is unacceptable. They’re the ones with the power to change it. Be that teacher who says ‘You can do anything.’
International Women’s Day is a fantastic cause and an enticing movement. Get involved, even if it is just reinforcing their beliefs that they can do anything they put their mind to.
The importance of International Women’s Day is not to shout about women’s rights. It’s about having the understanding that no one has the right to tell anyone that they can’t do something.