I wish to inspire and include you!

DIANNE JOSEPH

Today, it gives me a pure and distinct pleasure to wish every girl and woman from every echelon of our society a Happy International Women’s Day!

The theme, Inspire inclusion, in itself is both timely and significant. Everyone wants to be included. Inspiring inclusion may appear simple or may in fact be very simple if we dedicate ourselves to celebrate our diversity and empower our women and girls, not only today but beyond.

To do this, one must recognise our social, economic, cultural and political achievements.

As a long-standing professional within the financial services sector, I am of the opinion that our women continue to make steady strides and have risen to competently hold and manage leadership positions of all types in equal dimensions to our male counterpart. Such examples include labourers, mechanics, merchandisers, electricians, postal workers, media professionals, construction managers, teachers, CEOs, attorneys, doctors, scientists, prime ministers – and the list cannot be easily truncated. And importantly, we do so with a high level of excellence.

In today’s world, when we call for a service, there is little "picking and choosing" with whom we would interact to get what we require. Women have been included in the vast majority of roles. Nevertheless, there is much work to be done in some jurisdictions to guarantee that we enjoy global recognition and inclusion. In this regard, countries may be best advised to design and build infrastructure meeting the needs of women and girls which may allow the goal of inclusion to flourish to the point at which all women are valued and respected.

And it takes me to the fact that for us to be valued and respected, we must also put emphasis on respecting ourselves and our fellow women. We must lift up, not pull down each other; we must exude pride and confidence; we must remember that we are women and we have the capacity to professionally challenge the status quo and hold our position in the social, political and cultural arena which was once male-dominated.

We must organise ourselves and lean towards continuous personal development and to mould our daughters to do the same. We must develop our talent, decision-making capacity, mental and general health, sporting and cultural abilities and seek to further elevate ourselves in this competitive world. We must never lose sight of the fact that "we can do this, we can make that desired change to remain included and to protect the future generation of all women!"

I wish to invite you to join my train, that will always be fuelled and ready to inspire and include you on my journey – my professional women, my daughter, my sister, my mother.

You are included!

Dianne Joseph is the chief operating officer of the Trinidad and Tobago Co-operative Credit Union League.