Empowerment of citizens interested in asserting their rights and growing. This and other phrases are repeated ad nauseam today. Are they just empty words? Is it really possible to empower people?
The search for the empowerment of citizens is not something new. Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault separately established their conceptual framework, starting from Marxist thought. Precisely this origin makes the term and everything with which it is usually related be seen with some doubts by a part of the population.
But what does it mean to empower? In simple words: give power to the people.
Empowerment for global citizens
After World War II, many women’s groups appropriated the verb and established it as one of their premises. The word then acquired a tangible meaning. Feminist movements assumed that they had to obtain the power that has been denied in order to assert their rights and achieve the necessary gender equality. A fight that still continues.
Since the first decade of the new millennium, the concept has been installed in business areas. Today empowerment is a leadership strategy. In the same way, it is a term with multidisciplinary applications, but with a single purpose: to be a tool for the development of people at an individual level, and of society as a whole.
For marginalized groups
Today, empowerment is often closely related to goals set by marginalized groups. Its incumbency when it comes to serving as a theoretical framework to bring together the struggles of these groups, which is unquestionable. It is no longer just about fighting for women’s rights.
Immigrants are part of the groups that must swim against the current to stay afloat and achieve their goals. For them, empowerment is not easy. But at Globaling we are convinced that it is possible.
