Empowerment
is not being more powerful than anybody; it’s about having equal rights with
protection, support and justice. Empowerment is to feel free and able to do
best in life. To a lay man life is full of mysteries. Finding a rationale to
these mysteries is the journey of life. From impulsiveness to inquisitiveness
from satiation of urges and desires one needs a comprehensive drive to lead a
life of humanism and that is what is called empowering.
Life is a combination of love, intimacy,
fortitude and energy. Energy is what separate with living and nonliving. The
energy can be felt in many ways physically, psychologically and spiritually. To
the scientist it is potential and kinetic. Whatever may be the interpretations,
the human beings need the channelization of this energy in productive ways and
in other words it is empowerment.
Empowerment and confidence are synonyms.
Helping others are always good, but if the help turns to a shelter, first they
feel comfortable, then they feel no worries there is somebody to help me,
finally they will feel like ‘I am not OK’ and good for nothing. This results in
the formation of an incapable individual. Building self esteem and self
confidence in others while guiding them is very important to create empowered
society. It is really significant that parents take due care to encourage
children to do things for themselves developing a sense of initiative to
empower them. They begin to learn valuable life skills which help them to be
flexible and adjustable to changes in their routine and life and to develop
social skills and become a best person.
The baby
when starts to walk, fall down frequently. We help the baby to be strong on own
feet. Even after, when the baby wants to walk fast he will fall down and hurt.
What’s the response? Baby starts to cry and mom quickly lift up the baby and
pampers and sometimes blames the floor to make the baby fall. That’s a message
the baby recording in the brain, ‘the floor is not good, that’s the reason to
fall down’. Like this starts the tendency, to blame others for even our fault
or laziness. Also to believe, there are others to take care of me. Here stretching out our hands to the baby,
we can ask our baby to ‘get up, come forward, I am here, come and hug me, it’s
Ok, next time you can walk more easily, now you are too small, this is the way
to walk by your own, come on sweetie, you are getting strong, wow....you did
it...’The baby got clear message, I have to walk carefully. You are empowering
your baby by building self confidence.
When kids
start their school, let them do their things by their own under your guidance
and supervision. Such as to organise their school bag, fill their snack box
with their favourite picks, lunch box and water bottle. By letting them do
these tasks by themselves give them the chances to learn how to organise by
their own. That’s the power experiencing by the kids. Don’t be a rescuer of
your child to show how much you love them. That’s only blind love. If you want
your children to be empowered you have to provide enough opportunities to do
their own tasks by themselves. The chances to face problems and challenges
always create some struggles to solve them. Help them to face and work on the problems
which build patience and resilience and allow them to reach the goal and feel
powerful in difficult situations. You will be surprised to see how they
accommodate with the tasks and start doing by their own which makes both you
and your kid more relaxed and appreciable and more empowered.
Teenagers may be allowed to make some
decisions and also to take responsibility for their actions and decisions.
Parents need to guide them when mistakes occur and to treat every mistake as a
lesson which teach persistence and to master in it. Even if it is a risk, allow
them to take up the risk under your supervision. This encourages them to learn
life skills and help them to grow self esteem and give them a greater sense of
self confidence in decision making.
During college years permit your children
to choose their favourite subject. Let them go ahead and explore the heights in
it to reach the destination to build up their beautiful and powerful life.
In case of women, in their middle and old
age they play an important role in caring for grandchildren, enabling their
parents to go for their work by taking it as a pride. But they are not at all
rewarded while the costs to their own physical and emotional well being are
pretty high. It is ironic that women who often spent a life time caring for
others end up unhealthy, poor and have no one to rely on when they themselves
become frail. Empowered women at this stage can easily overcome the mental and
physical discomforts by doing yoga, volunteering and social activities along
with their routine works.
Here comes the importance of self
empowerment. Empowered persons can lead a quality life. Those who are empowered
need to turn to the society, to empower the weaker section among us. In this
context I would like to share the activities of All India Women’s Conference (AIWC),
Aluva with our beautiful readers, which make us more and more empowered.
The aim of AIWC is to uplift and empower
women and girls from inside enabling them to stand in the front line along with
men. Some of the important activities are skilled training on tailoring,
embroidery, fashion designing, beauty course, jewellery making, soft toys
making, soap making, computer education etc. Crèches are run to accommodate the
infants and kids of women who attend the programme. Day care centre for old is
for keeping them active and vibrant in peer groups. Rural outreach programme on
computer literacy is benefitting women without disturbing their work. Off
campus and on campus workshops, seminar and camps on domestic and public
violence, harassment at work place, gender equality, field sanitation and
hygiene, anaemia detection, yoga and meditation, homestead farming, precautions
against rainy season diseases, mudra healing, chakra cleansing, neurobics,
nutrition, adolescent training, career guidance and goal setting are some of
the topics covered in our programmes. We have a women library with more than 20000
books. Monthly review on a particular book is conducted in our reading club. We
are keen to take up literary programme based on our visits and interviews
conducted with empowered women. Above all each of us is committed to do
empowerment acts as and when needed on routine basis even in our personal
trips.
We are really recognised by the results of
our programmes to increase the status and position of women in every walk of
life. Gender equality assures both men and women to enjoy equal rights and to
build up confidence in women. Women empowerment helps in the overall
development of the family and reduces poverty which contributes for the benefit
of society. Once the societies are empowered the world would absolutely change
to a beautiful place to live in harmony.
In the world in general, still it is male
dominated in all spheres of life such as social, economical, political and
religious. Preference for male child as first born still exists among many
families in the society. The sons always
get better education and healthy food over daughters in the rural areas. More
over the inherent superiority enjoyed by the males are automatically pushing
out the females in the home with high level of domestic responsibilities. The
women thus are not able to participate in social, economical and religious
activities. They are supposed to live their life in a second line, as a child
under father, as a wife under husband and in middle and old age under sons or
son in laws.
Women need to rise up, and things are now
changing to a better phase. Now women are enjoying equality in education,
employment and social rights. Even if this is the situation, women still suffer
many hardships and unworthy treatment everywhere.
The best quality of women is her multi tasking
ability. She can handle both home and office equally well. Women are always one
step up than men being the undisputed owner of the human race by carrying them
and breast feeding them.
We all are born with the same power. There is no discrimination. Then from where
and how comes the difference? Is it from the environment we live or from the
traditional culture in our religion, society or nation? Off course, no doubt,
it plays a great role in one’s life. In my opinion most importantly one is
being moulded by the rules and regulations of their own family.
In childhood a child needs to be
guided and disciplined to do right things. And during the growth it is clear in
front of the child to find the beautiful paths through which to travel and
reach the destination. Be brave and bold to choose your favourite things to
build up. It is crystal clear; the empowerment is in one’s own shoulders. Know
your strength; set a long term goal for yourself and for other weaker sections
in your community. Be active to stay positive and vibrant. Strengthen your body
and mind through yoga and meditation to have a peaceful soul and spirit to
enjoy self empowerment.
