Friday, April 15, 2016

A-Z Blog Challenge: M is for A Mighty Girl

I came across the A Mighty Girl website when it turned up in my Facebook newsfeed. It's a resource site aimed at informing and supporting all those who are seeking to empower and inspire girls right up to their teens and provides suggestions about things like books, toys, videos, clothes and other anything else that might that might help in raising strong, young women. I'll certainly be going back to this resource whenever I need to find a gift for the young girls in my life.

But it's not only about the website. The A Mighty Girl Facebook page posts the A Mighty Girl blog  - it also appears on the website - and the posts are many and varied. There are book, clothing, toy and movie suggestions and posts that tell of women who have overcome the obstacles society has put in their way to succeed in many fields.  Some are famous like Marie Curie (awarded two Nobel Prizes for her pioneering work in Chemistry and Physics) and Valentina Tereshkova (the Soviet cosomonaut) while others are less well known like French aviation pioneer Raymonde de Laroche, the first woman in the world to obtain a pilot's licence in 1910. Then there are brave women like Irena Sendler who organised the smuggling of around 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II and American Harriet Tubman who, after escaping slavery herself, worked to rescue other slaves held in the south. Other women are showcased for their work in helping others on a smaller scale - women like Dana Marlowe, of Washington DC who helps to provide the necessities of life like sanitary pads, tampons and bras for homeless women and so many others who work quietly to help others.

When my grandchildren are old enough I look forward to sharing these kinds of stories with them, because, whether they are boys or girls, these are tales that inspire and I hope that they'll take that message away with them.

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