The Voices of Women

Have you realized how much women’s rights have changed? Some countries are slowly changing, but luckily some women are able to come visit the United States and describe the lifestyle of their country to us.

March is women’s month, and the international students helped out with the “Girl Power” event. This event allowed international girls to talk about the women responsibilities and the expectations of women and how it has changed. Some of the countries that were represented were Nigeria, Mozambique, India, Japan, U.S. and France.

Ilda Guambe helped create the event questions and answered some of the questions, herself. “I am so passionate about working with girls and young women in rural areas and one of the things that I wanted to do was create a non-profit just to support girls with education, especially don’t afford and those like young mothers to go to school just like finding scholarships and helping to go back to school,” Guambe said.

She explained to the girls that were on the panel that it is important to educate girls and women about what other girls and women go through on a daily basis around the world.

Junior Clarissa Blakely heard about the event from flyers.

“I like the wide variety of international students that are here getting their education,” Blakely said. “It’s really cool because you don’t expect somewhere like Missouri Western to have that many international students.”

Dr. Jennifer Jackson got the opportunity to listen to the panel with a coworker. “[My favorite part was] seeing all the women on the panel being able to represent not only their home cultures but also themselves when discussing such difficult and challenging topics,” Dr. Jackson said.

The audience seemed to enjoy it. The answers from the young women on the panel were informative. It seems like the goal to inform the audience about what women from other countries deal with daily was reached.