We Inspire women and girls in TT

Every Sunday, WMN celebrates the women of TT and the region, and we at Newsday are proud to see women lead the charge in their own communities to empower others and to see organisations join that cause too. Women like Jamaican, Cortia Bingham, founder and CEO of We Inspire, whose work is generously supported by the JMMB Group both in its Jamaican operations and here in TT.

For the past five years, Bingham's organisation has held workshops for more than 10,000 high school students in Jamaica. This move didn't happen by accident.

Growing up in a lower-income area in Jamaica with her grandmother, most girls and young women in her community were overlooked and few, she realised, would progress beyond basic secondary school education to make something of themselves. In short, few would ever escape the cycle.

Bingham knew she had to escape.

"Looking back, the experiences I had are the very things that I use to tell my story, to empower other women to encourage them to make changes for the better in their own lives," she told WMN.

"It took me a long time, a lot of reading and listening to the stories of other successful women for me to go from where I was to where I am today. There were little expectations and little hope for women raised where I grew up. I was not only part of a middle to lower-income nuclear family but also abused at the hands of a close male relative. That cycle continued when I ended up in an abusive relationship later on. But I kept pushing, knowing there could be better," she said.

"All those experiences led to me to using my story to help other women by creating a sisterhood to help them connect with others and to improve their own lives," she explained.

The mission of We Inspire is to empower and mobilise women to help other women and break their own cycles in which they may be stuck.

"Today, in society, women, in particular, feel stuck, and this movement was created to empower the whole women. We want to bring to the fore, the full embodiment of the power of being a woman – since women who are given that confidence to be better, can be better mothers, better businesswomen even. And stronger women make for stronger communities, especially in the Caribbean," Bingham added.

The JMMB Group has been supporting this movement over the past few years in its Jamaica jurisdiction. The financial group was itself co-founded by a woman, Joan Duncan, who wanted to develop a financial product and a financial institution that catered to the ordinary person starting in Jamaica but extending beyond into the region. Chief marketing officer, Lisa-Maria Alexander, herself a champion of women's empowerment as a foundation member and past president of AFETT (the Association of Female Executives of Trinidad and Tobago), has been instrumental in bringing We Inspire across Caribbean waters to TT.

"I share Cortia's passion for why this is so important, especially in our own space – as a brand and as a country. At the end of 2019, the JMMB Group launched JMMB WIN – the Women’s Inspiration Network across all its territories. This network brings together the extraordinary women at all levels of JMMB, with a common passion and purpose to connect and to help each other grow. The group’s commitment to women’s empowerment and gender equity, diversity and inclusion is being supported by an engagement with the IDB International Development Bank on an upcoming leadership sensitisation project," Alexander said.

Growing up, Alexander was a Brownie before joining the Girl Guides Association and has always had an affinity to the notion of women empowering and supporting other women.

"When we speak about empowering women, it's not about making women more powerful than men, it's about creating an environment for equity – so that we are considered and seen as equals. While we have made many great advances in terms of corporate positions and in education, you still see massive gaps in areas like the STEM careers for instance or in terms of the ability of women to access investment financing too," Alexander explained. "The We Inspire partnership is one that aims to develop the whole woman – in all areas, and that's why it makes for a perfect partnership with JMMB," she added.

As part of the thrust to empower girls and young women in TT, the We Inspire Women and Girls movement together with The Sapphire Miriam Foundation and JMMBTT will conduct vision board workshops and other related workshops across ten local schools for girls.

"The goal of this is to encourage young women and girls to envision a bigger and better life and to stand up and speak up in all spheres of their life," Bingham explained.

"This is about the whole woman, the sisterhood, and about us facilitating women to look ahead with hope to the future and to fulfil their potential.” Alexander added. “The empowerment of women is at the core of who we are at JMMB – as an organisation that believes in family values, love and one that recognises the greatness in all, we encourage everyone to seek to fulfil their own potential."

That fulfilment of one's mission is at the core of Bingham's story – and why her story has resonated so deeply, and her movement has grown so quickly.

"Our message connects with people," the We Inspire founder explained.

"We focus our messaging on failure and how you manage failure. We discuss topics like emotional intelligence and others like managing your emotions to stay motivated even when you are disappointed. And people, women, gravitate to this," Bingham observed. Having spent several years in the entertainment and media industry as well, her connections within the industry and her reputation and value system have also been critical to the success of We Inspire.

"The ultimate vision for us as a movement is to connect our sisterhood across the region. We want to show that there is power in elevating our girls to become strong women and encouraging our women to raise strong girls in turn," Bingham said.

"That's the beauty of all of this – when women are empowered and thrive – we all win," Alexander noted.

As the world celebrates the value of women who are at the core of many families and many communities in our region, WMN will continue to tell the powerful stories of women who inspire others. Happy International Women’s Day!