In Concert with Women's Resilient Voices

In most workshops, there is the standard podium or table, the PowerPoint, the attendees sitting in chairs, hearing, learning, making sense of some important topic.

Not so much at the Young Women's Resilient Voices for Empowerment Through Performance parallel session at the 2016 Commission on the Status of Women. This was a fully engaged gathering of complete participatory theatre. A program conceived and designed by Dr. Beth Osnes, Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of Colorado-Boulder, Chelsea Hackett, PhD student in Educational Theatre at NYU and the Starfish School in Solola, Guatemala, now directed by Vilma Saloj, "Her Infinite Impact" is a 12-session introduction to expanding vocal range and efficacy through exercises, games and theatre activities. 

The session involved voice and body warm-ups, group imagery creation and partner discussions which culminated in the entire group of about 16 and then smaller groups of approximately four each contributing to the expression of what it means to empower women and how that would look as a statue-like representation. Commentary was then offered on the perceptions that each presentation elicited within each participant.

Developed as a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project, the program itself is now mainly used in Guatemala at the Starfish School. Its larger purpose, however, is adaptation to any group that wants to physically empower womens' voices through the creation of strong, stable and secure manifestations of the environment needed to do so and ultimately to transfer that to the women themselves.

In the near future, the program will be introduced in Tanzania, New York City and Boulder, Colorado, and it is working to develop opportunities for women to advocate in communities through their vocal and civic strength.

Collective Advocacy: Leverage Because She is Not Alone

“Unless you draw on women’s expertise and also use women as planners … and any marginalized group, you’re leaving chips on the table.”

The NGO CSW session of March 14, 2016, “The Power of Women and Girls’ Voices: New Directions in Collective Advocacy,” gathered together leaders from Women Thrive Worldwide, Rural Women’s Network Nepal, Forum for African Women Educationalists, Generation Initiative for Women and Youth Network Nigeria, and World Learning.

One of the panelists lauded Women Thrive Worldwide for the NGO’s success at lobbying the UN to include equitable, inclusive, and quality education, rather than simply access to education, as part of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for these next 15 years. This is a clear example of the result of collective advocacy, of listening carefully to the voices of those affected by education that fails on indicators of these qualities.

Women Thrive Worldwide communicated 5 major lessons about how collective advocacy can be used most powerfully at the global level:

1. Building relationships among coalition members is critical.

2. Evidence-based messaging is powerful.

3. Diversity of advocates makes the collective voice more relevant.

4. Research, training, coaching, tools, and engagement should be concerted, representative, and 

    applicable.

5. Advancing the priorities and solutions of women and girls living in poverty, especially, is a top 

    goal for NGOs as they meet directly with decision-makers and stakeholders.

One of the panelists asserted the following:

“You have unique capability when you draw on those voices; you have authenticity that leads to a power persuasion that no one can match; third, you eliminate tremendous amounts of talent [if leaving them out]. Unless you draw upon them for advocacy, you’re not credible.”

Certainly, women and girls, and any other group suffering inequality and its blight on the human soul, do know what is best for themselves. Their voices must be heard, and they must matter.