I’m excited to announce that we have a mission!
Emerge Global is a community that empowers women who have survived abuse to rediscover and celebrate their personal beauty, develop their self-sufficiency, and become leaders within their own communities. Building off of my last blog about our mission, let me explain the wording and thought process of our word choice: “Emerge Global is a community that…”: We envision Emerge Global as a community that brings about collective change, rather than an organization that implements change from the top. It is through our collective effort as partners, sisters, and friends that will not only sustain our mission, but carry it forward. “…empowers women who have survived abuse…”: While we want to avoid labels, we also want to acknowledge the strength of the women we work with. They truly are survivors of different types of abuse. Violence, marginalization, poverty, and discrimination are all forms of such abuse- from oneself, others, or society. “… to rediscover and celebrate their sense of personal beauty…”: We hope our community will provide a space of beauty and joy where there in the past has been tremendous darkness and pain. That space is created through the self-discovery of the women themselves. Before they can have self-confidence and the tools needed to attain their own visions of the future, they need to love themselves. We see Emerge as a way to not only help women identify their inner beauty but to embody it fully, celebrating it with every step forward.
“…develop their self-sufficiency…”: We aim to help women become self-reliant, so that they can provide for themselves and their children. To achieve this goal, every Emerge woman should have the tools to be independent, to be mobile in various work environments, and to start their own business if they choose. “…and become leaders within their own communities”: At Emerge, we dream of a day when women around the world who have been denied economic opportunity due to social marginalization will not only be self-sufficient but will be leaders in their own communities who create truly sustainable, grassroots solutions to some of our most pressing problems. Through our community, every Emerge woman will carry her newly developed tools forward to impact the lives of others.