Sisterhood inspires and empowers Mowat Park learners
The group serves as a young women empowerment and social guidance initiative which currently runs at Mowat Park High School.
SISTERS who have each other’s backs. That is the concept behind the newly formed organisation, Big Sistaz.
The group serves as a young women empowerment and social guidance initiative which currently runs at Mowat Park High School.
Speaking on their brainchild, Big Sistaz, founders and best friends, Amanda Gumede and Smangele Shezi said, “The concept behind the organisation is about being the women we needed as positive examples when we were younger. So we got together and decided to start at Mowat Park because that’s where we attended high school. It also made perfect sense considering that the essence of the all-girl school is sisterhood. We wanted to give back and promote this by helping the girls with their self-confidence, self-awareness, focusing on issues that affect them most as well as career guidance.”
The group held a walk in Montclair on Saturday, 29 May to raise awareness of the amazing work they do as well as empower other women with positive messages along the way.
Amanda added that there were many things and information that she wasn’t exposed to growing up and that one only realises how vast the world is after they have left school. “Not all parents or teachers can take the time to guide these girls. We want to bridge that gap to better prepare them for the real world in any way that we can. As women, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of competing against one another or having unhealthy encounters with each other. So through this organisation, we wanted to curb such interactions by promoting positive relationships, through guidance, in young women,” she said.
“As much as we coordinate the running of the organisation, we let the girls take the lead and express themselves in the safe space that we have created for them. Every week we have different themes that specifically target women, for example, the last week of May was about spreading awareness on women’s health. The group is voluntary and open to all the learners,” said Smangele who was happy to see how the girls had grown into a sisterhood through the initiative.
