Female empowerment has spread throughout the urban Atlanta area. A women’s march was held (insert date here) and many other movement have been involved in this topic including Grady High School’s IGNIT club which empowers girls throughout the grady community to do what is right.
“The main goal is to empower girls to pursue their dreams and to get the message across that it is no longer okay to tell women that they can’t do whatever they want because they are a girl,” said Olivia Weller, sophomore club member.
Wednesday’s are set for meetings where politics and inspiring the next generation of girls are discussed. However they have been recently helping women running for office campaign. This has included making lanterns for the lantern parade that supported these women, doing photo shoots with the candidates, walking door to door telling people about the candidates, or even making phone calls to people about the women.
The club is welcomed by the grady community, which is believed to have a very inviting atmosphere.
“I haven’t experienced any hate from anyone at all, probably because Grady is such a hyper liberal environment that it’s kind of hard for people to discriminate clubs like Ignite,” said Mia, a sophomore member.
However, Nadia McGlynn disagrees.
“I believe that there are a few people who are against the club, but there are so many liberal students at Grady they they feel the need to be silenced,” said McGlynn.
This club has rapidly spread throughout the community and has up to (a numer) members at the moment. They stand up for the problems that most women face in the Atlanta area and focus on helping younger girls.
“Just from being in the club for a couple of months, I am already aware of so many more women candidates running for all kinds of offices in Atlanta, and I’ve even met a couple of them. For me I think the purpose of the club is to learn more about local woman candidates and also that it’s totally possible for someone like me to run for office,” said Prausnitz-Weinbaum.
This group of girls are also working towards spreading the word of this new club around the grady area. The Grady walls are covered with flyers for upcoming meetings and the teacher sponsor, Sara Looman, constantly lets students know that there are spots available.
“The girls work really hard to promote the club and they also do everything on there own, its like I don’t even have a job to do since they are so independent,” said Looman.
The actual program has trained over 5,000 girls, since 2009, to be empowering females. IGNITE believes young women should actively listen to the perspectives of people they agree with and those they disagree with, in order to clarify their own beliefs.
The club is also promoted by wearing shirts that say “The Future is Female”. These shirts are worn by celebrities and club members. The website features girls wearing the merchandise with smiles plastered on all of their faces.
“In 2015, women presided over the lower or single houses of parliament in only 28 out of 191 countries (or 15 per cent), and over the upper house or senate in only 15 out of 76 countries (20 per cent) (table 5.1),” states the World’s Women 2015.
IGNITE strives to make this number larger. There website promotes helping girls works toward their goals of being in office and pushes others to do the same.
This strives to help girls gain confidence and be a part of the political aspects in the Grady community.