As Saint Lucia joins the world in commemorating International Women’s Day on March 8th, one influential women encourages others to focus on the impacts of other women in generations prior.
Kim Dennis-Mondesir, a former Miss SLHTA Queen 1996 and a staple in Saint Lucia’s pageant scene, says women can draw inspiration from the achievements of mentors. These mentors, she adds, can be any woman in one’s life. “Look at someone in your past – it could be your grandmother, but always have someone that you admire, someone who’s been your teacher at some point,” she said.
Dennis-Mondesir highlighted the positive impact other women have had on her life and uses this as an example of the major role that women play in others’ lives.
She explained: “Celebrate the generation before, the generation now, and the generation coming up. Because as I can recall, I had a lot of influential women who I admired as the journey went on. I have my grand aunt in Gros Islet, Mrs. Prudence, who was a teacher in Monchy, who taught a lot of individuals at and at night she taught the elderly to read and write.”
Under the theme: “For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment”, this year’s International Women’s Day focuses on the importance of community among women and girls. For Dennis-Mondesir, women can play an instrumental role in shaping the lives of others.
“A lot of women, when you meet them, they always say they have low self-esteem and we need to bring our young ladies out of that. We do have an issue in Saint Lucia: our young ladies are not being treated right, or they have a difficult livelihood. So it is up to us to hold hands together and celebrate our day,” she highlighted.
She adds that Women’s Day is not a time to draw lines of division and calls for unity among all women and men as a celebration of women’s impacts. “Women are very important in the world today. And it goes both ways because there are fathers who take the role of mothers as well and the young ladies who are coming up. That’s what we have to do. We have to embrace them and admire the ones who groom us and make us who we are today.”
Women in local leadership as well as Women’s Organisations have recently been placed in the spotlight as citizens advocate for an end to Gender-Based Violence, which disproportionately affects women.
