Dear Editor,
International Women’s Day, March 8, is a day to reflect on the achievements of women all around the world as well as ponder on the goals and objectives yet to be achieved that would bring us closer to gender parity on all levels and in all spheres.
The IWD 2018 theme is Press for Progress, an urgent call not to give up as there is still a long way to go before parity is achieved and women all over the world enjoy the freedoms, rights and privileges affirmed to all men and women.
In St. Maarten, we can look back on the resilience of our women in the face of disaster and the heroic and selfless deeds by so many of our sisters, daughters and friends.
To all our caregivers and volunteers, we say “Thank You.”
Amongst these women, we recognize the important work of our teachers, who mold future generations.
To the women who put their lives on the line for the safety and security of others.
And then there is you and you and me, ordinary women with extraordinary strength and determination to face each day with a renewed resolve to press on; who overcome the challenges of our daily lives and still can smile.
“We Press for Progress, We Press on.”

Sarah Wescot-Williams
President of Parliament

Happy International Women’s Day 2018

Dear Editor,

Press for progress or in other words, push forward for progress in order to achieve equality for women in areas where it is felt that progress is still lacking for women, including in economic and social standing. I take this opportunity to wish all women in

Sint Maarten from all walks of life an enjoyable and most reflective day.

On this occasion I wish to give attention and support to the many women who became jobless in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. Women from different backgrounds, who made a choice to leave Sint Maarten in search of work. Women, who brazed the odds and started a small business in order to help put often-overpriced food on the table, and pay the high rent.

Women, who to date have no place to live since the hurricane and shuffle from place to place every day, waiting for a safe place to sleep for themselves and for their children.

Women, who have written into the social housing scheme, and who have been waiting for many years to be able to live in an affordable and decent home. Women, who wish and can afford to purchase their social homes, waiting in vain to see yet another year go by with no firm decision.

The list continues, yes, right here in Sint Maarten. How about pushing for progress for these and other women, without having a specific social agenda, other than pushing for progress for all women, and by extension, our society would benefit and progress as a whole?

Less talk and firm decision-making is required sooner rather than later. How do we break this vicious cycle of marginalization, and achieve true empowerment of women in our society as a whole? This struggle is real. One of our most pressing issues facing our women today is the fact that reportedly a whopping ninety-four percent of our households have a yearly income of between 0-50.000 guilders a year. Most likely a great percentage of this figure comprises women.

Pushing for progress in our society is ultimately measured by the success of our empowerment programs and policies made available for women and girls that enhance their participation in our social, financial and economic life, visible through the improvement of their immediate surroundings. Improvement in their homes, real job opportunities, and their neighbourhoods.

Happy International Women’s Day 2018!

Gracita R. Arrindell

Dear Editor,
Happy International Women’s Day!
"Women need to be empowered through the strongest tool – education. They don't need to be subservient to anyone, but at the same time, men must change their mindset towards women. If they are more respectful towards them, then things will change at the grassroots level. It will happen slowly, but everyone has to move together." - Madhuri Dixit
Women empowerment has taken on a new meaning in this modern society. The power of a woman is not limited to self but to progress of a people in its broadest sense. Femi Fani-Kayode in the Premier Times of Nigeria noted that women are by far the deeper and more powerful of the two sexes.
With all this in mind, the steady increase in the number of working women, they have gained financial independence, which has given them confidence to lead their own lives and build their own identity. They are successfully taking up diverse professions to prove that they are second to none in any respect.
But while doing so, women also take care to strike a balance between their commitment to their profession as well as their home and family. They are playing multiple roles of a mother, daughter, sister, wife and a working professional with remarkable harmony and ease. With equal opportunities to work, they are functioning with a spirit of teamwork to render all possible co-operation to their male counterparts in meeting the deadlines and targets set in their respective professions.
Even with careful planning, women continually face challenges in society. Some of these challenges can be relieved by employer-provided family-friendly conditions for women. These solutions may include job-sharing where two employees cooperatively share the same job, part-time employment, staff working from home or telecommuting, flexible starting and stop times and flexible core business hours, and periodic paid and unpaid work interruptions for child care and elder care.
In modern age, women are going very well in all the fields of progress. They are demonstrating their talents in best. They are serving as teachers, doctors, engineers, administrators and even leaders of government. The need is to increase this ratio with balance. An empowered woman is an educated woman and more education among the women means more progress of our society and our nation.
Happy International Women’s day on behalf of the board of the Windward Island Teachers Union.

Board of the Windward Island Teachers Union (WITU)

Dear Editor,
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
“Oh no, I’m too old for that. Not at my time of life. That ship has sailed. You’re only getting weaker at age 40 with fewer opportunities. What have you done with your life? I thought that I would’ve bought a house by now. Starting over at this age? Where am I going with 4 children? Who will want me? You better choose now because it only gets worse the older you get.”
I wonder if this sounds familiar to you? It does to me. For many years I watched as many people around me have set unrealistic goals, limiting beliefs, and placed unfair rules on themselves, generally based upon the expectations of others – especially by a certain age.
Some have convinced themselves that they couldn’t leave their well-paid office job to pursue a dream, because of their advancing years. A colleague once shared that she didn’t pursue an advanced degree because she thought that she was too old, at age 41. She now deeply regrets this, while another was completing his college degree at age 48.
A close friend from college with an advanced degree in engineering got married in her 40s and had her third child at age 47. She loves her life and it is very evident too.
Obama retired at age 55. Ronald Reagan took his oath at age 69. Sydney is 3 hours ahead of Perth, but this doesn’t mean that Perth is slow. Someone graduated at age 22 but took a decade to secure an excellent job. Sandra, a 52-year-old senior executive, lost her job and moved back to Alabama and in with her mother.
Someone became a CEO at 28 and died at 50, while another became CEO at 50 and lived to 90. Someone is still single, and another is getting their third divorce. Dana had her daughter in college, she died at 39. I watched a neighbour brag about buying her house before everyone else did, and she also was the first to foreclosure. Her partner also died very soon afterwards. A dear friend of mine waited almost 20 years for his dream home; he just paid off his mortgage in just 7 years. At age 65 Colonel Sanders parlayed his now famous chicken recipe into a multimillion-dollar business – KFC
You are a unique individual that cannot fit into a rigid system set by others. Everyone operates in their own time zone. Some may seem ahead of you, and others may seem behind you, but everyone is running their own race at their own pace. Do not envy nor mock them; they are in their own time zone. Don’t pay attention to what others around you may be secretly thinking of your latest venture.
I know that certain family members may believe that you should be working in a full-time corporate job with benefits and that you should “suck it up and accept a life of limitations.” In trying to make others proud of you, to satisfy their own beliefs and values, you completely overlooked your own pride in yourself, your values, and your dreams. You abandoned and betrayed yourself.
This, I believe, is a life lesson that for the most part can only be learned and utilized after a certain amount of life experience.
You can still value the opinions of others, but do not let them influence your intuition and the passion that you have for what you are trying to achieve. You’ll gain priceless knowledge from each attempt, and as you get older, you’ll gradually start to gain some clarity about what you want from my life.
As a parent, you’ll discover a resolve, power, and dignity that had been lying within you dormant, an untapped resource. With age comes responsibility, but it also brings with it new outlooks on life. It brings with it feelings of self-awareness and of clarity that may not be there in your earlier years.
I also believe that our dreams and desires can take many years to truly form into something that resembles our true path, and I’m not sure that this process ever really ends unless we allow it to – which would be such a terrible shame. Each of our life experiences forms our perception of the world around us, and this, in turn, forms our vision of what we want our future to hold. It is imperative that we never become too old to dream and that we have the confidence to act on those dreams to create the lives we most covet, at any time along our journey.
Sometimes, we must learn how to do nothing, which is actually much harder than it sounds, if we have always been busy, living a life of stress and overwork.
If we have nothing to aspire or look forward to in life, we end up feeling like we are going nowhere, and we stagnate. I believe that these limiting thoughts of age hold us back from living the truly miraculous lives we deserve and are fully able to cultivate if we take diligent care of ourselves. Age, if anything, is on our side. When we grow older, our goals and dreams should really, by our life experiences, seem more attainable.
It is a pity that age is seen as something of a restriction; and that we adopt this belief through our own perceptions of what others view as acceptable for us at a given time. I learned that the advice that others give to you is merely based on their level of consciousness.
Life is about the right time for you to act. Your journey may be a straight path or a long winding one. But, just relax! You’re not late, slow or behind. You are just in time ... in your very own time zone.
The most important relationship is the one that you have with yourself.

Carmelise Gittens