ESD GLOBAL: THE SNOW BALL EFFECT OF EMPOWERMENT

By Molly Singer

The Snow Ball Effect of Empowerment—beautiful and dangerous.

Empowerment is such a grandiose term. It means the personal efficacy to make changes, choices, challenges for one’s self. This includes the perseverance to take steps toward personal freedom and the guts to work with others to do the same. Empowerment is a funny word, it seems nebulous, like a single flake of snow in the air … you are not sure it is there or not. Like a snowflake, empowerment is individualized, but in its aggregate it is beautiful, dangerous, fun, scary – you choose.

Likewise, a single empowered person joining with another and another creates the empowerment movement. And with out that, the mission to eliminate violence against women is futile. At ESD Global we work to scale empowerment to individuals’ across the globe, we bring them together in groups knowing that they will go forth and spread the snow.

We train trainers. That is, we train women to become ESD teachers. In turn, these women each teach at least 100 people a year life-saving ESD skills. For example, in 2022, we will be holding 22 trainings, reaching 330 women, who will, in turn, reach 33,000 others within a year. Those life-saving skills are for individual to protect themselves. Another part of the training is to foster community advocacy to make the choices, imagine the differences, that individuals and teams can make.

This is what happened to Darya Fyah (not her real name) a feminist artist and activist fighting institutional violence and SGBV in Mexico. She took an ESDG course and her life trajectory changed.

Dayra’s teacher came to her with the strategies and tools to help her grow from a snowflake into a snowball with the power to hit and make impact. Since then, her snowball is becoming a snow pack to create a blizzard effect that will stop violence against women in Mexico. Dayra understood the value of making ESD available to every woman in Mexico. She started an online Go Fund Me Campaign so that ESD Global could hold trainings in Mexico. She raised more money online than she makes in a year. She did this selflessly for the sake of her sisters who are fighting violence and for those who have died.

She is now a voice and face for women’s empowerment and is building a movement to stop femicide in Mexico which has the highest femicide rate in the world and the lowest rate of femicide prosecution. She has been featured in Pan y Circo, an Amazon Prime documentary about the fight against Femicides. To learn more about femicide in Mexico and Dayra’s work see this video.

As you are reading this article, ESD Global is conducting two trainings in Mexico. Where?

We can’t tell you because the individuals there fear retribution for learning and teaching life-saving skills.

Do we have a great pictures?

No, that is also dangerous.

ESD Global has reserved an entire Hostel to house and train 30 women who are community leaders to learn and teach others’ ESD skills. The women and staff are diligent and have taken steps to secure their safety. Participants have taken circuitous routes, told lies, made excuses to be at this training so they can be a part of stopping violence against women and femicide in Mexico.

Imagine, it is dangerous for women to learn how to learn be safe in Mexico.

Nevertheless, I do not doubt that after this training, there will be an avalanche of actions and a contingent of women sharing and teaching ESD to others. ESD Global is working to host another training to have more women learn how to teach ESD and to advance the learning of today’s cohort. If you are inspired to stop femicide in Mexico, please donate here.