Everyday (S)heroes

IT’S Heroes’ Day and what better way to celebrate than to recognise some female heroes who have over the last year made significant contributions to various fields. Jamaica has a rich history of remarkable women who have made significant contributions to the country and the world. The list below is not exhaustive, but these women have demonstrated exceptional courage, leadership, and determination in their pursuits.

Shelly-Ann Weeks, HerFlow Foundation

Founder of HerFlow Shelly-Ann Weeks believes that for Jamaica to realise its goals, we must invest in girls. “Empowered girls are confident and capable. They will be integral to any progress that Jamaica intends to achieve,” she noted.

“As a country, there is much that we can gain by ensuring that every Jamaican girl has the resources to be their best.”

Weeks has been on a period poverty fight, ensuring that teen girls are given the resources in the form of access to basic hygiene products.

“For a lot of these girls, they are choosing between their education and their periods. Some of them stop from school when they are on their periods, just because they don’t have any products. Some of them end up reusing one pad for multiple days which, of course, you know has its own medical and health issues,” Weeks said.

She also argued that the cost of menstrual products can be prohibitive and that although some sanitary pads are considered relatively cheap, adolescent girls, as well as women, sometimes cannot afford these necessary items.

Jannel Alexander-Reid, the Institute of JAR

It was her passion for female empowerment, entrepreneurship, and education that led educator and transformational leader Jannel Alexander-Reid to establish the Institute of JAR some five years ago to pour into the lives of women locally.

The skills training and entrepreneurship school offers a list of short courses and workshops to women across a number of vocational areas.

“We are dedicated to empowering women to become financially and socially independent,” Alexander-Reid said.

Having now trained some 400 students annually, the institute’s founder and director wants to, during the short to medium term, expand the school’s teaching curriculum while tightening partnerships with vocational entities such as the HEART/NSTA Trust. Similarly, moves to expand the business to other parts of the Caribbean, in countries such as Grenada, Trinidad, and St Lucia, she said are now in advanced stages.

Spotlight Initiative

The Spotlight Initiative in Jamaica, which started in January 2020 and will end in December 2023, is a united effort to eliminate violence against women and girls. It is implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Population Fund, United Nations Children’s Fund and UN Women. In one of their programme highlights in August, a total 80 survivors of domestic violence from two parishes were given the skills and grants towards their new or improved small business enterprises under the $17.1-million economic empowerment programme geared to cut their dependence on abusive partners.

The economic empowerment programme sought to practically implement components of the violence against women and girls prevention strategy of the local sustainable development plan developed by the UNDP.

Renee and Leanna Brown, Mission 500

After learning about period poverty — the lack of access to sanitary products due to financial constraints — Renee Brown and her pre-teen daughter Leanna started a quest to help girls facing this challenge.

Through their initiative dubbed Mission 500, the two set a target to donate 500 packs of sanitary products to the needy. They quickly surpassed that amount by obtaining more than 1,000.

“It has been empowering on a variety of levels. We were able to develop her social conscience as she is able to understand that a part of citizenship is giving to others who are less fortunate. It has also allowed us to do things that traditionally she would not have learnt at this age, such as doing things on an Excel spreadsheet, doing calculations, writing letters, and mathematical concepts that children at her age are not exposed to,” said Brown.

Olivia Shaw-Lovell, Women of Destiny, Ja

Founding executive director of the non-profit organisation Women of Destiny, Ja, Olivia Shaw-Lovell has been working to eliminate violence against women and girls by supporting survivors of gender-based violence.

“We know that [domestic abuse] is a growing problem and [that] it has been plaguing our nation,” she said.

Women of Destiny was founded by Shaw-Lovell in 2015. A social development consultant, Shaw-Lovell is also a 2023/2024 Chevening scholar. The scholar has plans to utilise the skills gained in the UK to improve the work that she does within communities, continuing to provide a haven for holistic empowerment, mentorship and advocacy for marginalised women in Jamaica. The St James native is also a US Department of State’s Community Solutions Fellow alumnus. Her work in community development has also led to her receiving several awards, including the Prime Minister’s Youth Award for Outstanding Service, and cultural ambassador as Jamaica UNESCO Youth Ambassador. She was also named in March this year as one of five leading Jamaican women to serve as advocates in the Government of Canada’s global campaign #SheLeadsHere. #SheLeadsHere is a campaign that aims to raise the profile of female advocates and leaders doing exemplary work in areas aligned with Canadian priorities

Sara-Lou Morgan-Walker, The Angelic Ladies Society

The Angelic Ladies Society was modelled off the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, and Girls Inc, Washington. Sara-Lou Morgan-Walker leads the women-led, non-profit that has been in existence formally for over 10 years, working with vulnerable, high-risk girls in care facilities between 12 and 18.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work on the ground in various areas in our niche,” Morgan-Walker said.

“Our primary focus is girls in State facilities — foster homes, orphanages and juvenile facilities. We provide holistic care, in essence, life skills training sessions for girls, using our connection with empowering women.”

This May, the society coordinated the second staging of its career empowerment session, dubbed Labour of Love, at the Women’s Centre of Jamaica Foundation in Morant Bay, under the theme ‘The power of a skill’.

For 19 teen moms in St Thomas, the focus was on not just gaining a skill, but on the value of monetising the skills and what that could mean for their financial future.

Ayesha Constable, climate researcher

Ayesha Constable is a climate researcher and practitioner who is co-founder of GirlsCARE (Girls for Climate Action, Resilience and Empowerment) which empowers women and girls as advocates for climate action by building awareness and technical capacity through mentorship and training. She is also the founder of Young People for Action on Climate Change Jamaica. Her work is directly related to several of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 5 to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls and SDG 13 to combat the impacts of climate change.

“Through my interest in women’s issues, I saw where I could link climate activism, because at the time, there wasn’t such a well understood connection between the two issues of gender and climate change because it was then emerging. I lead GirlsCARE, which is a regional organisation that provides mentorship to young girls and women who are budding activists seeking to find their place and voice in this movement,” she said in an interview with the UN.

She was also named in March this year as one of five leading Jamaican women to serve as advocates in the Government of Canada’s global campaign #SheLeadsHere. #SheLeadsHere aims to raise the profile of female advocates and leaders doing exemplary work in areas aligned with Canadian priorities