empoWer: Let’s tell our stories
Tags: Female Writers, Writing, Nonbinary, Women Empowerment

the story of empoWer…

As Babson students, Anusha and Noor noticed the absence of a community that allows equality in participation and involvement for members looking to discuss pressing societal challenges. We observed that none of the organizations in the BOW community strive to create social value through their writing or maintain their clubs solely for self-development. We were determined to create an open and welcoming environment, free of deadlines or mandatory publications, where non-binary individuals and women can speak their truths. empoWer is unique in its structure as all of our members decide their level of involvement, creating a mixture of autonomy and community.

As we frequently promote, empoWer is a three college collaboration across Babson, Olin, and Wellesley, committed to creating a supportive community for its members to productively confront unconventional, social issues through writing. As an organization focused on self-development, empoWer’s main mission is to allow ourselves to understand that all of our past, current, and future experiences have value and purpose.

We host biweekly workshops that consist of subtopics that contribute to a larger monthly topic. Our subtopics range from anything about our hair to our futures, uncovering parts of a larger whole. Usually, our workshops include some artistic pieces coupled with discussion to produce thoughtful writing. We plan to work with LegacyKept, a company that aims to preserve life stories, to publish our members’ work.

a member’s perspective

We caught up with one of our members, Babson sophomore Maria Herwagen to hear how joining empoWer impacted her as a female writer. Coming into Babson, Maria was excited to have the opportunity to join other clubs and cohorts of female writers, hence her decision to join empoWer, calling it a “collaborative space where women came together in terms of writing”. The aspect of having structured writing spaces and times drew her interest in the organization. Maria went on to describe how because English is not her first language, people might not be interested in hearing what she puts on paper. When reflecting on her time with empoWer, Maria emphasized how she has become a more confident writer through the support and engagement of empoWer’s members towards her writing pieces. Maria said the most rewarding part of being in empoWer is her connectivity and conversations with her BOW peers, which leads her to better understand her own identity.

so what next for empoWer?

Speaking from personal experiences, the era of COVID-19 created a lingering feeling of detachment from society. In this age of tens of hundreds of Zoom and virtual calls, it feels as though isolation is the new normal. So how do we re-engage with our community and get in tune with ourselves? This is the next step for empoWer. Our goal is to continue to connect and empower women and non-binary individuals from the Babson, Olin, and Wellesley College community. By creating this community, we strive to enable connections of students that might not otherwise have been made. Furthermore, we hope that through various writing prompts about a variety of topics, our members will become more in touch with themselves and others.

Connect with us!

Interested in joining empoWer? Find all relevant info for session sign-ups and joining our roster here

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