A powerful woman

In the middle of October my organization had the opportunity and great pleasure to welcome an extraordinary and amazing woman as a guest for the event “Woman Has the Power”. Our guest was Ms Madi Sharma, member of European Economic and Social Committee, successful entrepreneur deeply involved and dedicated to combating discrimination, creating job opportunities, and promoting gender equality.

We in Macedonian Women’s Rights Center run a Woman Economic Development Programme, as a tool for improving women's economic status in the Macedonian society. The poverty, not having efficient financial means and economic dependence, of women are the most common problem.

Facing this issue, we decided to do an event for economic empowerment of women, regaining strength and self esteem. Originally, the idea of this event came as a follow up of the study visit “Combating discrimination: Legislation and good practices” in Brussels this April. Namely, in one of the sessions where I got this wonderful chance to met Ms. Madi Sharma for the first time.

Ever since she came to Skopje in October, she gave me and my coworker’s lots of optimism, hope and positive energy. When she started to talk, we saw from up-close how women power can materialize in one powerful woman. She presented the importance of inclusion of women in the economy, in the process of entrepreneurship as well, and the significance of having equal employment opportunities for men and women which is necessary to be ensured. Madi talked about how a failure can motivate you to try again and again and again. She was talking about persistence and deep beliefe, about self confidence and taking chances.

She brought out many creative ideas for our women and I can use them weather on project bases or for creative workshops.

The speech was very inspiring and I sensed how I can use it for a personal development and thus become stronger. I immediately started thinking about finding a mentor and consider opportunities to learn from strong people and situations.

Ms Madi Sharma is not just another woman who is fighting for human rights and holding plain speeches on love, peace and unity. Back in time, she was married woman with two children living in an arranged marriage. She became victim, or more precisely, survivor of domestic violence. Now she is traveling around the world to spread the word of power, simply because that is absolutely possible.

Women who live with gender based violence, like she did ages ago, need help and assistance from the society and civil organizations, but from the women in need as well.

Talking about the future possibilities, after the event our guest wanted to take a walk in our Old Bazar. The Old Bazar is a part in the City of Skopje that has a special atmosphere and where you can feel as the time stopped in the XV century when the Ottoman Empery was ruling. She was interested to look at the architecture, the small shops for gold and silver, to smell the roast meat coming from the old barrooms, to laugh with me at the flashy clothes that hurt your eyes in the Turkish stores (the thing that I must explained that these special-occasions- dresses are not usual fashion in Skopje) and just to spent the last two hours before she was leaving.

I believe that for the spent time, she found a good ground in Macedonia to build a vision together with some enthusiastic women for making changes by developing ideas. While walking in the Old Bazar I can’t help but wonder, with what picture of Macedonia our guest is leaving us? Is it Macedonia as an exotic country? Well, we are having the 28th edition of Skopje Jazz Festival this fall and we are welcoming big jazz stars like Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke for example. There is a picture of Picasso in our museum of modern art that he gave… This county is moving forward and has progressive potential and energy as well. In that regard, that day on the way to the hotel where our guest was staying, along with the terrible traffic jam due to the presence of authorities from the EU institutions, Macedonia received a positive report for the country’s development and making reforms by the European Commission.

As Ms Madi Sharma said - “I hope the disruption to the City and the cost of policing will be worth it!!” So do we. Thank you Madi, you have been an inspiration!