International Women's Day 2021

Dear Friends, 

Today is a special day as we have something very important to celebrate-  Happy International Women’s day to you, everyday heroes!

Today is for all those incredible people out there, all the daughters, mothers, sisters, and carers. All the frontline fighters and the shadow crusaders, all the women to be and the business women, the artists, the pragmatic, the bubbly, the quiet, all of you who make our world so special: this article is for you, to say a massive thanks and to celebrate your daily wonders and you super-powers.

 Women have a very special place in our hearts, here at the Jacksons and it was important for us to dedicate them those few words. As you probably know already, we work in close collaboration with skillful and wonderful women in Bangladesh, and it is from this great team-work that our brand was born, and kept on expanding over the years.

The Jacksons founder, Louise, started this amazing journey with less than a hundred women, almost ten years ago already, and after all this time, our team grew bigger and bigger and we are now so pleased to be working alongside more than a thousands friends, mainly in south-west Bangladesh but also in other small part of the countries. This amazing partnership allowed us to widen our range of products but also, and this is what is at the heart of our brand, it gave power and strength to those women, in a part of the world where job opportunities are limited. Without those phenomenal people, halfway around the world, The Jacksons would most probably not be what it is today, so for that and everything else, thank you, from the bottom of our heart. 

Our dedication to empowering women does not stop at the Bangladeshi border though. Even here, in Notting Hill we work hard towards fulfilling our goals, and this starts with our team, seven women, all with their own special qualities, working hard to deliver the best possible customer experience. But this is not it. We also try our best to give visibility and to empower brands created or owned by women, brands with ethics who work towards achieving the same goals as us, brands such as Mishky who creates beautiful jewelry in Colombia. 

We all have people who inspire us, who push us to step out of our comfort zone and achieve great things, who make us realise that changing things is possible, with determination, discipline and dedication. And to celebrate this special day and those special people, we asked the members of the team to tell us a little bit more about one woman that really inspired them, and why. We also asked what they would tell their younger self as little girls. 

• Louise’s inspiration:

• My inspiration would be Amanda Gorman , who spoke to the world ( at Bidens inaugural) of unity and hope - working together to meet the challenges “of what lies before us “. She gives me hope for a much better future 

• What would I tell my younger self ? I wish someone had said this to my teenage self - Don’t be shy. Get out and be your best self now!

• Vinnies’s inspiration:  

• Wangari Maathai, Kenyan political and environmental activist, and very first African woman to win the Peace Nobel prize in 2004. Her action was directed towards preserving biodiversity in African and fighting deforestation. She founded the green-belt movement in 1977, encouraging women to plant trees in their local communities. But her vision was broader and did not limit to environmental considerations. She saw tree-planting as a political action, with potential to empower women, foster democracy, and give local communities independence. Her movement contributed to the plantation of more than fifty million trees to this day, and is still very much alive, even ten years after her passing, in 2011.
  
  source: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2004/maathai/facts/
  http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/

•  Believe in yourself, have confidence in your decisions and what you want then things will happen. Visualise, take control of your actions and be compassionate.

• Anyone who teaches and inspires our kids to find the wonder of life - as the kids all go back today

• note to younger self — find the wonder of the ordinary; enjoy the now as life will happen.

• Inspired by all the women out there who during lock down have cared for their families emotional and physical well being including all the women who have homeschooled their children throughout this difficult period. 

• What I would tell myself as a little girl...cherish your friendships and don’t take them for granted as they will add to your sense of emotional well-being throughout the different stages of your life.

• Bessie Smith 1894-1937 American blues singer during the Jazz Age ‘Empress of the Blues’ advocated a wider vision of African-American womanhood beyond domesticity, piety, conformity she sought empowerment and happiness through independence and sassiness. She sang about the everyday reality of wanting to live life to its fullest as a young black, poor woman and advanced the revolutionary idea that black lives mattered, specifically that black women’s lives mattered. 

• Expand your sense of the possible

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Smith

• Lucie Bash, French entrepreneur who created the app Too good too go and actively fights againts food waste. I’m inspired by all women entrepreneurs, daring enough to jump in the open and put their ideas and creativity at the service of causes that matter to them. 

• I think i’d tell my younger self that she’d need to do things for herself first, and stop trying pleasing everybody around her. She gotta live her own life and do what matters to her, not what people expect her to be or do.