Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership

BE YOUty & Empowerment

Trainer:

Johnie Sanders is a poet and a social worker, and serves as the Homelessness Coordinator for Arise for Social Justice in Springfield, MA.

Class Description:

In such a diverse society, the typical image of beauty does not represent the millions of women of all ages, races, cultures, shapes, and sizes who truly exist. Instead of society admiring the true beauty of women, a false image of beauty is glorified through the media, social media, television, and magazines. These images cause women to look down on themselves as they try to live up to the unrealistic standards of photo‐shopped images that are plastered all over beauty ads. BE YOUty & Empowerment is a workshop that is geared toward the uplifting and empowerment of women in a society that is often harsh, judgmental, and critical of women. Through fun exercises and activities, we will address ways to maintain positive thoughts about ourselves, build self‐esteem, and acknowledge our self‐worth. We will also discuss ways to support one another and become more unified in today’s society, where there is such a display of opposition, adversity, and animosity among women. Most importantly, we will focus on how important it is to just BE YOU! Let’s dispose of what society has planted in our minds about what beauty is, and redefine what true beauty is by embracing our own BE YOUty!