MCSW: Empowering the Next Generation of Leaders
Dear Women and Girls of the Commonwealth:
CHRISTINE MONSKA
On April 19 the MCSW will host our first in-person Girls Empowerment and Leadership Initiative (GELI) event where young leaders from all over the state will form powerful inter-generational networks to work on leadership development and advocacy tools.
All young women, girls, and gender-expansive youth will then be equipped to advocate for issues that are important to them at our MCSW Advocacy Day on May 31. Young people will meet with their legislators to educate them on issues affecting themselves and their communities and help identify equitable solutions focusing on those who are most impacted by systemic racism and sexism. They are uniquely positioned and are experts in challenges youth face today.
One of the most important tasks of the MCSW is to ensure there is a strong and diverse pipeline of not just regional and state commissioners, but city council members, state representatives, senators, CEOs, entrepreneurs, scientists, and more.
If we don’t invest in our nation’s young people, particularly those with marginalized identities, then gender and racial equity will be much harder to achieve. In the last couple of years, we have been learning about the issues young people face through our listening sessions and virtual empowerment events, but now we are finally able to begin more advocacy work to ensure these critical voices are echoed throughout the State House and beyond.
This issue is so important to me, in part, because of my own leadership journey. I was the first person in my family to go to college and seldom met a woman who had a similar upbringing in a leadership role. I was always at war with my own imposter syndrome.
Professors and community partners had to tell me just about one hundred times that I was smart enough, good enough, and allowed to take on leadership roles. At just roughly twenty-two years old, I was a District Director for a MA State Senator, overseeing several staff and became a regional commissioner on the Berkshire County Regional Commission and sat on the Berkshire County Action Council’s Board of Directors.
I was myself still a young leader. I didn’t see enough young women at any of the tables I worked so hard to sit at.
In fact, I rarely saw any at all.
I made it my mission to lift as I climbed so I could look around the room and see more young people in leadership positions. We often don’t have seats at the table. I worked across western MA, greater Boston, and now the South Coast to develop leadership programs for women and gender-expansive youth.
I designed and led the award-winning Young Women’s Initiative in Springfield where a fourteen-year-old leader took the stage at a national conference before Michelle Obama spoke. I led global and local Boston-based leadership programs in collaboration with The Clubhouse Network and MIT infusing art, STEM, and advocacy.
I also taught at Bard Microcollege in Holyoke, a free associate degree program for mothers. I recently watched several alumni graduate from my alma mater, Smith College, and other BA programs – many the first in their families to achieve this milestone.
As I reflect on my own journey, now as the Executive Director of the Women’s Fund SouthCoast in New Bedford and as one of your state commissioners, I am committed to engaging all the young leaders who may battle systemic barriers and their own imposter syndrome.
I hope to have young women at each of the tables I now sit at. This is how women help each other get to the top and continue to create more equitable pipelines so there are more BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ people, folks with disabilities and people with low incomes making decisions that affect them.
Join us on April 19 for the GELI event and May 31 for Advocacy Day to have your voice heard and advance your leadership journey!
Come help us craft the future direction of the program. As a wise woman, Michelle Obama, once said, “…Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered. Empower yourselves with a good education, then get out there and use that education to build a country worthy of your boundless promise.”
In community,
Christine Monska
MCSW Secretary, Chair of the Girls Empowerment and Leadership Initiative
Executive Director, the Women’s Fund SouthCoast