LYNN — City Hall, in partnership with Latina Center Maria, celebrated International Women’s Day by honoring distinguished women of the community.
At the Tuesday evening event, female leaders received awards in the fields of community development and education.
“Our administration is very excited to celebrate some truly important leaders in our community,” said Mayor Jared Nicholson in his opening address to the forum.
Nicholson added that women are essential “to achieve our objectives and goals and move forward as a city.”
The City Council honored 20 outstanding women from the community with the “Inspirational Woman & Mother 2022” award.
“No financial prize is associated with this award, but we will have an event later this year where the awards are monetized,” said Magalie Rowe, executive director and founder of Latina Center Maria.
The women who received the award were recognized for their achievements in very diverse undertakings. Some, like Ingrid Escobar, received the award as outstanding mothers and others, like Heather Ardrey and Ebony White, were honored as community leaders.
“I was nominated for helping the Lynn community with creating the Facebook page for the parents,” said Ireny De La Cruz, one of the nominees. “I am still shocked. I never thought that creating a Facebook page would bring me here.”
“Magalie is a teacher at our school, and she informed me several days ago that I was getting the award in the category of an outstanding professional,” said Julie Louf, principal of Breed Middle School. “I am honored to get this award, and I am so happy to be here.”
Rania Caldwell, executive director of the English Learner Education Department at the Lynn Public Schools, said Rowe chose her for the award because of the work happening around supporting English-language learners in the district.
Another award winner, Maria Carrasco, the first Latina member on the Lynn School Committee, served as the keynote speaker at the ceremony. She gave a speech in two languages — Spanish and English. Her speech focused on the continued inequalities that are still present in women’s daily lives: abuse, violence, and lack of access to well-paid positions.
“We still have to fight against abuse against women,” Carrasco said in an interview. “We, as women, should fight to do the same job that men are doing.”
Carrasco is also an advocate for women to have control over their bodies.
“We still have to fight to do whatever we want to do with our bodies, and not to let people decide that,” said Carrasco.
Women are still penalized for abortions, while men can escape the repercussions, she said.
“We need to get more involved in politics, because that is how the policies are made and the decisions are taken,” said Carrasco.
The organizer of the event, Rowe, is a vivid example of female empowerment.
“I organized the Latina Center Maria six years ago,” said Rowe. “Because of the lack of information and the language barrier, many professionals coming here with college degrees had to work as daycare or cleaning ladies. Our mission is to empower Latina women through education and entrepreneurship.”
Rowe, who has taught at Boston College and at the middle- and high-school level, noticed at her teacher-parent conferences that almost all the participating parents were women.
“I have 120 parents coming to me through teacher-parents conferences,” said Rowe. “Latino parents don’t know how the system works.”
That was how Rowe got an idea of facilitating women’s English education.
“I said we had to educate moms, because if they know English, they can help kids with homework, and that prevents dropouts; that prevents their kids from taking the criminal path,” she said.
The YMCA provided free daycare for the kids of the mothers who participated in this program.
“My dreams came true,” said Rowe. “Because when kids are next door, moms can’t focus on their English; they are thinking about the kids.”
The first group of 17 women who attended this English-as-a-second-language course during the summer received their diplomas Tuesday at City Hall, and a new group begins its course now.
Another group that received diplomas at the International Women’s Day ceremony at City Hall were the participants of the online course on emotional intelligence.
“Time has evolved, and history has changed,” said Racheal Idegbue, who represented the Breed Middle School Spanish National Junior Honor Society at the event. “I feel that our voices as women need to be heard, because we do so much for the community and for the world. Women or girls can do anything as good as men or boys, and that should be very much stated and known in the world.”
