My Epiphanies: My Awakening

My journey with women empowerment could be dated back since I was born. In our family, our personal empowerment is as important as respect for elders. As children, we needed to work hard in school and finish our education as our parents have planned for us. We were educated in an all-girls school and gender competition or feeling inferior was unheard of. We lived in a society where women involvement was very normal.

My parents were generous. They were both very active and involved in our community. If some families went to picnics during Sundays, ours would go to medical-dental missions. The missions were always fun for us children since we enjoyed meeting different people. This experience exposed me and awakened me to where I want my life to go.

Fortunately, after college, I got a job in an educational institution for girls. There I worked with the nuns who emphasized empowerment and social transformation for the students, teachers and community. Once again, I was exposed in helping others. I taught students livelihood education. I trained and educated girls for both their future life as mothers and career women. I also brought them for mission-exposure trips to depressed communities. I found myself very involved in my work that one day I had to choose between my successful career and my home life. I chose the latter.

As I was putting my life back together I remembered what my father told me before he passed away that in any way, “we never let any one, let alone a man, undermine us or make us feel inferior. We were given good education so we have to use it as our tool.” Decades after, I didn’t know his advice would come in handy. With fire in my heart and the willingness to start over, I took my son and saved both our sanity.

Then one day, Ruth Bech included me in her newly formed group called World Wide Women. I volunteered as a researcher. This experience opened me to see the conditions of women from different places all over the world. I was given an administrative position in the online community and there I found my direction.

In this community, I found my voice. With professional work ethics, we served news, shared blogs, wrote our opinions and posted our posters. This gave me “the” epiphany of my all epiphanies. I realized, I can be a voice for other women and educate the world of their conditions. This led me to apply to the “Voice of our Future.”

Here, through the global network of the “Voice of our Future,” I can actualize my personal goal in helping other women uplift their lives. With the far reaching power of digital technology, women transformation is at hand. The world is smaller every minute and women communities are merging. More women would be led to their own “epiphanies.” More women would be heard, helped and most of all, empowered.