Creating a change for girls

Meeting every Tuesday, Senior Nina Klein and the council for the Women Empowered Charleston organization discuss the upcoming events and posts for social media. 

For Klein, being a part of an organization of young women has played an important role in the way she thinks of her future.

The Women Empowered Charleston runs their council differently than other clubs and organizations.

“We all are completely equal. There’s no leader, there’s no president. There’s no one person we all follow. We’re all 100% equal,” Klein said. 

By all being equivalent, Klein and the rest of the council come together to plan out events, like donation drives for women charities. Most recently, Klein was a part of their annual summit, which is their biggest event of the year. 

“ Basically, we had… empowered women from the area. We had…a couple different panels.  There was the art panel, like women [

in] art, women [in] education, women in business,” Klein said. “But we had some teachers from Magnet, a teacher from Wando. We had some business owners, we had some professors in business come talk…about their experience in their field, and give advice to the young women who were at the event.”

While meant to help run the event, Klein felt so inspired by what the women speaking at the event had to say that she lost track of their schedule. 

“It was so awesome. I was supposed to help run the event, but because these women who were speaking to us were just so empowered, I kind of lost track [of] time. And I was like, well, these women, they’re amazing. It was the most inspiring event I think I’ve ever gone to,” Klein said. 

Despite only being a part of the organization for less than a year, Klein already sees the impact that Women Empowered Charleston has created. 

“I’m going to take the summit as an example, all girls who showed up … they wanted to be a part of the movement, they wanted to know more. That shows the amount of impact and people who want to  be a part of their community,” Klein said. “While we had these speakers talking, it was like, you can tell like, ‘oh yeah, they’re inspired’, and that’s what Women Empowered is trying to do. Get you to want to help the community and  be inspired to help others.” 

Since the organization has a small amount of members, by posting on instagram, they are able to reach more people.  

“We love social media. Instagram is our go to. We also have…an email list. So people can go to our Instagram and actually sign up to be on the email list. And if you’re on the list, you can get our newsletter. We’re trying to do that every month,” Klein said. 

Even though Klein has been a part of the organization for a shorter amount of time than others, she helps obtain and set future goals for the organization. 

“We want to empower women to get out there and speak. We don’t want people to be quiet. We want people to speak, we want women to speak their minds. We want them to be empowered. We want them to feel like they are comfortable enough to…feel empowered,  because once you feel like that, it’s like, wow, I’m not I’m not going back,” Klein said. 

For member Elena Yu, she too has seen the impact of the organization brought to others. 

“I can see that people feel very comfortable coming to our events, and they learn a lot from…women in the group,” Yu said. 

Yu also helps contribute and plan events for the organization to get more involved in. 

“We try to donate to local charities, specifically ones that are like, My Sister’s House, other feminist ones. And, and for our events, we just want to get a group of women together so that you feel supported and safe,” Yu said. 

Returning member Caolinn McDaniel has been very active within the organization. While setting up events, she also contributes to the recent Instagram posts. 

“Right now we’re doing an Instagram campaign for Women’s History Month,” McDaniel said. “We’re doing every Friday we post about an underrated woman.” 

Since McDaniel has been a part of Women Empowered Charleston for almost two years, she too has seen and felt the impact that the organization has brought to her. 

“I’ve gotten a lot more empowered. It’s like a great way to be an activist in my community. Since I’m in high school, I’ve met a lot of great people. I’ve been connected to other organizations. It’s honestly just a great way to connect with people, to empower women in the area. That’s our mission,” McDaniel said. 

As the organization continues to grow, McDainel hopes to see the empowerment continue to grow as well. 

“We’re kind of just trying to make it like a safe space for women and  make it more accessible for women in the area to have the resources to be empowered into their rights and fight for those rights,” McDaniel said.