Does anyone else feel a movement of powerful women sweeping the world?
As I prepare to exhibit at the Massachusetts Conference for Women (very excited about going on 12/8!) I reflect on the incredible diversity of the women’s groups that I have connected with recently. Over the past few months I’ve collaborated/spoken with 85 Broads, Women’s Education Project, World Pulse, the Women’s Bar Association, Women 2.0, Equality Now, the Women’s Entrepreneurship Council, Simmons College, joinFITE, Golden Seeds, Church Women United, the Babson Center for Women’s Leadership, the South Shore Women’s Business Network, Women in the World Foundation, Pipeline Fellowship, Women’s World Banking, amongst many other women-focused organizations. Each group is so different, yet there is a common thread throughout all of them: sisterhood.
This concept of sisterhood is stronger than I first realized. I have found that as a young woman entrepreneur — with a business that creates gifts for women created by women who are rebuilding their lives — I have been welcomed into the fold. Women from all walks of life have warmly opened their arms to me and supported my work. They have arranged speaking events for Prosperity Candle, have purchased gifts from Prosperity Candle and have made incredible introductions for us.
We all know that the work we do overseas and with refugee women in the United States is changing women’s lives, in so many ways. We have seen that women invest their time, energy and resources in others and give back to their community. So I’m writing now to honor the fact that women in the U.S., no matter what their profession, political belief or amount of education, do the same. Women invest not only in their own communities, but in other women all around the world. The sense of sisterhood has no borders.
As the President of the South Shore Women’s Business Network, Janet LaBerge, said at their Gala celebrating 20 years, “Women network differently. We do business differently. We’re all about paying it forward.”
Thank you to all the women in the world who pay it forward every day. You make our work possible.
~ Siiri
