Bold Women

It has been made clear throughout history that women have the ability to make a difference and to make the world a better place. The bold decisions we make install the powerful message that we, as women, want to make a positive change. LAUREN

Rosa Parks

It had started as an ordinary Thursday evening when Rosa Parks boarded the bus in Montgomery, Alabama on the 1st of December, 1955. She had finished her work shift at the retail store, and her feet were tired, but no more tired than any other day. Miss Parks sat down in the first row of the ‘black section’ where she met with the other African Americans that had finished their long day of work. The bus drove to another bus stop where many white people filled the ‘white section’ so that there were no seats left in the front. A white person ordered Miss Parks to leave her seat so that she could sit down. Miss Parks did not budge. At that moment, she had made up her mind that she was going to stay there. When the bus driver came, and even the police, Rosa Parks stayed in her seat and did not move. She knew that she had the right to sit there, and her skin colour was not going to change that. Even though she was briefly put in jail, she had started the first signs of the civil rights movement as African Americans and their supporters started protesting by beginning the “Bus Boycott.” Rosa Parks truly showed us to never give up for what you believe in. The event that unravelled on the bus that night demonstrated her wanting justice. Miss Parks said she was “tired of being treated differently, like a secondclass citizen on account of the colour of my skin,” and demanded a change. She was clearly aware of the consequences, but yet prevailed with her actions, making many proud of what she had achieved by standing her ground. Her little but very significant protest sparked a new beginning for African Americans as they found a new inner strength and courage to fight for justice and desegregation. The bold choice made by Miss Parks brought 40,000 African Americans together to start the Bus Boycott. For 381 days, they would not ride on buses in Montgomery, to show how much the bus companies depended on the African Americans’ money, and how without them, they would go out of business. The decision Miss Parks’ made has had major impacts on American society and the world. African Americans are no longer legally segregated or have to give up their seats on buses to white people and it has opened up other opportunities for African Americans to fight for rights and freedoms that they once did not have.

WILLIAMS

There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish. - Michelle Obama

Mother Teresa

Over her lifetime, Mother Teresa became an international symbol of selfless charity as she devoted her life towards helping the poorest people in India. She was only twelve years old when she realised that she wanted to become a missionary to spread the love of God. At eighteen she left her home in Skopje, North Macedonia, to complete months of training to become a nun. This training enabled her to travel to Calcutta to teach at St Mary’s High School for the next seventeen years. It was when working in Calcutta that Mother Teresa noticed the immense suffering and poverty, which made her realise how much help those people needed. Even though Mother Teresa had no funding, she had permission from her superiors to leave the convent school she had been teaching at for many years so that she could devote herself to helping the poorest people in the slums of Calcutta. Still without funding, Mother Teresa created a school without a building for children who lived in the slums of Calcutta so they could get an education. After getting financial support, voluntary helpers, and obtaining permission from the ‘Holy See’, her work was able to expand into ‘The Missionaries of Charity’ which was created to love and care for people who nobody else could look after. Mother Teresa’s choice of devoting her life to working for the poor showed us how a life worth living is a life lived for others. We do not have to follow in her footsteps and become a nun working in the slums of India, but we can show compassion, kindness, and love towards others throughout our lives. The simplest choices of how we behave towards others can have a great impact in our community. Mother Teresa’s bold decisions have positively changed the world as she has made us more aware of caring for others, whilst creating organisations which will continue to help people for many years to come.