College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences students eagerly #EmbraceEquity this International Women’s Day

International Women's Day celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women worldwide. It is a day to recognise and honour women's contributions to society and promote gender equality further.

On this year's International Women's Day, we are encouraged to #EmbraceEquity as we strive to create an environment where everyone can succeed.

We celebrate the many post-graduate students studying different disciplines, who are remarkable ambassadors and key to developments in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and asked them about the noteworthy achievements in their studies and what International Women's Day means to them.

Leah Kamere is originally from Kenya and has lived in Ireland since 2001. She is undertaking a PhD at the School of Applied Social Studies, UCC, titled "Fighting Gender Poverty using Table Banking as an Alternative to Microfinance Institution's Banking in Nyeri County in Kenya".

Table Banking is a form of group-based funding where group members meet and make regular savings to form a sum of money from which members can borrow.

The main objective of Leah's PhD study is to analyse the extent of table banking in the most remote regions of Nyeri County in Central Kenya and the role of this informal mode of banking in the economic empowerment of rural women in the region.

One of the reasons Leah selected Nyeri County for her research study is to give back to her country using the research skills and knowledge she has gained in Ireland.

Leah acknowledges the importance of International Women's Day as a day of great celebration of the achievements of women worldwide.

She says, "On this day, the contributions of women are recognised and appreciated on an elevated international platform. When I interviewed women during my PhD data collection exercise,I saw the courage women in Nyeri have to try and alleviate poverty in their society. The use of table banking by the women leaders and members of these groups has helped them come together and raise each other to overcome the obstacles of economic and social inequality."

Aditi Singh is from New Delhi, India. She is pursuing an MA in Women’s Studies at UCC, a course offered at UCC for over 20 years.

The MA in Women’s Studies is an interdisciplinary course that brings gender aspects of diverse disciplines together, making it open to innumerable career choices. Aditi says, “The MA in Women’s Studies allows the opportunity to embrace diversity in disciplines, choices and gender performances. It allows us to question our privileges and rethink normalised societal biases from a feminist perspective.”

Aditi is inspired to work for women who struggle to raise their voices and want to work against the gender biases created in society. She acknowledges the importance of celebrating International Women’s Day. She says, “It is a day to celebrate the victories of women who fought to provide us with the rights we have today, a day to remind other women that they are not alone in this fight, that despite differences in the culture, we all share degrees of patriarchy to which we refuse to bow, a day to pay respect and gratitude to the role a woman plays of a mother, sister, daughter, friend, employee, wife, partner, employer. It is a day to remind us that our struggle to bring equality continues.”

Aurianna Jewell Joines is the current Choctaw-Ireland Scholarship holder and came to study in Ireland from the USA. This Choctaw-Ireland Scholarship was instituted in recognition of the act of generosity and humanitarianism shown by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma towards the people of Ireland during the Great Famine of the mid-Nineteenth Century and to foster and deepen the ties between the two nations today.

Aurianna is currently completing an MA in Digital Arts and Humanities at the School of English and Digital Humanities, UCC. Digital Humanities explores how the digital can enable innovation and how technology is changing what it means for us to be human beings.

Aurianna recently gave her MA thesis proposal presentation. Her ambitious project aims to build guides to embed sustainable storytelling in brand identities for small business entrepreneurs. Speaking of sustainability, oral history, art and how these coalesce in terms of representation and identity, her project is profoundly pro-social and looks to build openly accessible guides for the community.

We eagerly await learning more about how the studies of these female students progress. Together, they represent just a fraction of the women working to #EmbraceEquity at the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences.

College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Sciences

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