Empowered at The Valley

By Hayley Holloway ’17, Staff Writer

The Women’s Services and Gender Resource Center recently finished a social media campaign about empowerment.

Done through Facebook and Instagram, the Humans of New York-styled campaign ran from Sep. 21 to Oct. 1. Tamara Baldwin, a sociology major and head of the WSGRC house, came up with the idea for the campaign. It is the first part of the center’s campaign: Empower, Inspire, Change.

“A goal was just hoping that through people’s seeing and hearing these different ways that people feel empowered would somehow empower them,” Baldwin said.

Many different people participated in the campaign, including students, faculty and staff.

“One of my goals was to get people who weren’t as known on campus, and people that I didn’t know personally,” Baldwin said. “I didn’t want to get the people that we always see or that we all know.”

Those who were featured were asked “What does empowerment mean to you?” and “When do you feel empowered?”

“The main goal was to show the diversity in empowerment,” Baldwin said. “Knowing the different ways that people can be empowered is incredibly important.”

The Women’s Services and Gender Resource Center received positive feedback from the campaign, both from those featured and those who saw it. Jennifer Phung, a sophomore biochemistry major, lives in the WSGRC house and was featured during the campaign.

“I felt grateful that I was asked to be in it, and I found it really interesting how a lot of people had different thoughts on empowerment,” Phung said. “Some people defined empowerment as something that they do for themselves, and then others answered that they thought empowerment was how you treated other people. I thought that was interesting.”

The Women’s Services and Gender Resource Center’s next campaign will be called “This is What a Feminist Looks Like.” It was inspired by a campaign that was done after the WSGRC was first founded.

“I think that will be really cool to bring back this year, six years later,” Baldwin said.

To see the empowerment campaign or the upcoming campaign about feminism, check out the Women’s Services and Gender Resource Center Facebook page or its Instagram account @WSGRC_lvc.