View allAll Photos Tagged Empowerment
Taken with my 55-200mm lens.
The things people do when they are threatened,
When their insecurities and jealousy takes over.
Empowered
Your childish actions have failed you.
You attempted to destroy something of meaning to me,
Something I was proud of.
Something that I loved.
Apparently you have forgotten…….
I am different from you.
I will not stoop to your immature actions.
I have rebuilt what you tried to sabotage
and I have made it so much better!
I will take it to the next level
and wait until karma knocks on your door.
My dreams will not falter.
I am strong.
I am driven.
I am headstrong.
Because of you,
I am empowered.
Martha Alicia Benavente, from Tucurú, a small municipality in Guatemala trained for six months to become a solar engineer, and she is bursting with energy. She can’t wait to start building solar lamps so that her community can have sustainable energy at last. One solar lamp could sell for up to 200 Quetzals, a lucrative business opportunity for a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field.
In her words:
"There are more than 90 families in this community, none of the homes have access to energy.
Seven months ago, the Mayor of Tucurú selected me to go to the Barefoot College in India to learn solar engineering. I said, give me thirty minutes to think about it, the Mayor said, you have fifteen.
When I got on the airplane and it took off, I screamed! It was my first time, flying over the Pacific Ocean.
I used to be a domestic worker at a professor’s house in Tucurú before joining this programme. My day started at four in the morning. I would wake up early to go to the mill to get the corn for the tortillas for my children. Then I ran to work by 6:30 am. At my employer’s house, I cooked, swept the house, did dishes, showered the children and took them to school… and then ran to pick them up from school in the afternoon. For all this work, I got 500 Quetzals every month. It wasn’t enough to meet all our needs.
The six months I spent in India at the Barefoot College were also not easy. I got sick, and sometimes wondered if it was better to remain a domestic worker. But little by little, I learned everything. I learned how to make solar lamps.
Look at this solar lamp that I made at Barefoot College. Before I had the lamp, I used to spend 5 – 10 Quetzals every day to light candles. Or we would stay in the dark sometimes, because the store wouldn’t give us credit to buy more candles. I had to finish all my chores at home by 7 p.m.
Now, if I have all the materials, I can build a solar lamp in 20 minutes!
Right now, the biggest challenge is how to put into practice what I learned in India and to train more women. There are many mothers here who want to learn and who can benefit…I just need the materials to build lamps.
My dream is that my community benefits from solar energy. I made a very big effort to go to India, not only for me, but for the whole community. People come up to me and say, we are so happy that you’re back. Now we will have light!”
Martha Alicia Benavente, 45 years old, is a mother of four children whom she raised alone after her husband passed away. She has recently graduated as a solar engineer from the Barefoot College in India, through the UN Joint Programme on Accelerating Progress towards the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women implemented by FAO, WFP, IFAD and UN Women in Guatemala, and funded by the Governments of Norway and Sweden. Her story relates to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7, on access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all; as well as SDG 5 on gender equality and women’s empowerment and SDG 8, which promotes decent work and sustainable economic empowerment for all.
Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown
Read more first-person stories of sustainable development challenges and change: www.unwomen.org/en/news/editorial-series/from-where-i-stand
"Empowerment" by Stephen Broadbent on Waterside South/City Square. Designed by the artist, sponsored by Alston Power (now Siemens) and completed in 2002.
Confidence to tackle dreams, the increasing will to strengthen ones self is a great virtue.
This shot is a genuine moment of a little island boy, stretching out his arms towards the sky while I never asked for it. It isn't staged whatsoever, and lies completely on his own will. The yacht in the background brings something personal to me. Since a small kid I always wanted to be a naval architect, designing yachts and this was my dream. Here is see this boy, living his life, looking committed to strive for his own dreams, something I always wanted to do. So this picture, mirrors my ambition as a small boy.. and means alot to me.
Visit my new personal website, plz :) : Fabi Fliervoet Photography
Eat More Strawberries! A cup of strawberries has 49 calories and 3 grams of fiber. t.co/xuYCcQuo0f t.co/eVQh3bDafu (via Twitter twitter.com/youthrunnola/status/760549262878871553)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks at the launch event for U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls, at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on March 15, 2016. [State Department Photo/Public Domain]
Another trip down Memory Lane ...
These photos are from a shoot I did way back in September 2003; I was just starting out with digital cameras and working with models. I was equally clueless in both areas. I think I was using a Olympus and a Kodak digital camera. I also noticed that back at that time I was doing a lot of very tight close-ups to the detriment of others. Lessons learned.
The model here is a young lady named Anna; she was one of favorite models back then. Always fun to shoot with - great personality, sweet and sassy, gorgeous body, and very sharp. We didn't have themes back then, we just let the mood decide her outfits - and apparently this included a fitness shoot.
I took these photos at Westchester Lagoon, Anchorage, Alaska on a gorgeous late afternoon in September 2003. I miss those days!
Each time you confront fear, you empower yourself. #motivational #inspirational #dailymotivation #getinspired #motivationalmd #goodday #iloveNL #nicefrance #exploreFrance
Mission to Cambodia: Beneficiaries of the EmPower project in Cambodia, 17-19 October 2022
Photo: UN Women/Ploy Phutpheng
Mission to Cambodia: Beneficiaries of the EmPower project in Cambodia, 17-19 October 2022
Photo: UN Women/Ploy Phutpheng
Mission to Cambodia: Beneficiaries of the EmPower project in Cambodia, 17-19 October 2022
Photo: UN Women/Ploy Phutpheng
“Snakes and Ladders”-Resilience Guide
POWER OF UTTERANCE…
The children I work with have usually failed more times than they have succeeded. They usually have given up on adults and do not trust any system the adults want to use to “fix” them.
Now this also means 80% of these students have missed out on learning the sounds of the alphabet. If these sounds are not learned and mastered when young all other learning falls away into “no where land “ and we are left with a child in a state of hopelessness, or self-hate for being so stupid or dumb and in a lot of cases for the rest of their lives.
After working out what kind of dominate learner they are as well as exploring in safe ways, that suits each individual child’s needs, what sounds they do or do not know I then share with them that the sounds they are missing is the major reason they have struggled in all other areas of learning.
The relief on each child’s face when they hear they can find a way out of the horrid place of hopelessness and despair is beyond any human words but felt deep within the heart and soul.
I found a solution the children could take back into their classrooms to achieve continued advancements to get themselves up to par with other students which did not require me being with them.
What was missing in the majority of these children’s experiences was they were not getting opportunities to hear their own voices. The power of speech, utterance, hearing yourself speak, or singing, or chanting, or reading out loud is the only way the bridges in the brain can be built between eyes/feeling brain to the ears/thinking brain and doing/instinct brain. It is this foundational process of “hearing your own voice” that builds these bridges which is a critical element in learning at all other levels.
To achieve unity of inner systems these bridges need to be built and you are never too old to start to build them.
As the human brain grows and develops over thousands and thousands of years so does the growth and development of the super human power of speech, words, talking, utterance and language towards the capacities of contemplation, meditation, reflection, pondering and higher levels of conscious thinking. Out of these areas of growth comes comprehension, understanding and many more intellectual skills.
What you see in each individual human’s development of speech and brain growth patterns you also see the exact same growth and development patterns in the collective human race. What is in the Macro is the same pattern in the Micro.
These children taught me that the more they got to talk and share their ideas and thoughts with adults and the adults took the time to listen and respectively reflect back to the children accepting and genuine belief in the child the stronger the child’s abilities increased in their classrooms.
The more the children got to develop their language, vocabulary and communication skills while talking to the adults around them the stronger their reading, writing , thinking, reflection and pondering capacities also strengthen. The stronger their thinking and reflection skills developed the more their brains grew and developed. The communication skills are symbiotic with brain growth and development.
So does anyone know why most adults do not want to talk to children? What is so scary to most adults to find out how children see the world around them or find out how the child is feeling about the world around them? Why do parents work so hard to get their very young babies to talk and as soon as they have mastered the capacity to talk the parents no longer want to hear what they have to say and ask them to be quite?
Classroom teachers around the world set all sorts of amazing information in front of the children they are teaching and as soon as the children see and hear this information they immediately burst into speech with their friends sitting next to them with excitement and joy with what they have just learned and 90% of classroom teachers read this behaviour as being disrespectful and shut them all down immediately.
Why and when did adults create such a false reality of what children are doing was evil and wrong and disrespectful to the teacher?
Children need to put into words immediately what they have just learned so they can hear their thoughts out loud to build bridges of learning across to their other brains and learning styles.
As teachers are given more and more of what communities and parents used to be responsible for in the education and training of children the children are falling further and further behind in their language, social, emotional and spiritual strengths. Let’s be honest here humanity; teachers have to be given the slack here and community and parents need to take back responsibilities.
As I have been observing this process and trying to understand what the children are actually doing I learned from the children that it does not matter how many times they hear the teacher or others say words or sounds it is the child’s own voice being heard by their own ear that builds the bridges in the brain between the different brains and connects the collective learning development of the child.
Let me put that another way. For the human brains to connect and then be able to unify into one collective learning system each individual brain requires to hear their own voice speaking, sounds, speaking out loud for the bridges between each different brain; thinking/hearing, seeing/feeling and doing/instinct brain to work to their collective optimum.
I explain to the children if they want to learn to read or spell, or write they have to say the sounds out load for their own ears to hear their own voice and this is what builds the bridges from their eyes to their ears to their action brains.
Every time I explain this to a child I see them breath as they understand how they can now achieve instead of failing (every child is hungry to learn).. All children are looking for answers to how to empower themselves and stop being dependant on others and to achieve success instead of continuing to fail.
The other level to the power of utterance is when a story is not shared, when a child goes unheard that story, trauma, memory will just keep playing out or within over and over again in the thinking brain until someone stops long enough for the child to share and for someone to actually listen and acknowledge they have heard them. The amount of adults of all ages I have sat with as they share stories they have carried all their lives that have blocked their own development has been a tragedy in its self.
When that person was given the opportunity to share their story regardless of age they then are free to move forward and grow up all other social, emotional and spiritual selves. Working with children has far more value than waiting until they reach older age to clear these blockages.
Every child on this planet needs to have adults give them time to express their own thoughts and feelings and have reflected back to them they have been heard and are valued. Then the natural continuum of maturity can be freed to advance all of humanity forward and not just a lucky few.
Womens works at a brick field on the eve of International Women's Day at Haroa village in West Bengal, India.
You can do anything if you put your mind to it.
Up.Down.Left.Right.Forward.Backward
You own it. Make it so.
Isn't that the truth? I would like to think that is one of the tenets implied within this very colorful mural I found in Victoria BC. I love the vividness, symmetry, and variety. Super!
It's the weekend! Make it whatever you want. Just make it grand!
— at Victoria Youth Empowerment Society, Victoria BC