Every year around this time, a flood of content promoting gender equality and celebrating women’s achievements fills our timelines in honour of International Women’s Day on March 8. 

Upbeat hashtags and sentiments abound and our inboxes will be full of (often vaguely related) promotional content or, in pre-pandemic times, invitations to clink glasses and listen to speeches honouring women in our community.

As the founder of the FIDEM Charity Foundation, a local non-profit organisation providing life-changing empowerment opportunities to vulnerable women and girls through access to education, arts and culture and well-being guidance, you would think I would be all in for the concept of International Women’s Day. However, I sometimes find that to be a challenge. At FIDEM, we are striving for every day to be treated as International Women’s Day – for women’s rights to take a constant centre stage. 

We want it to be a given that every woman in our community and beyond has equal rights to men and the chance to take control of their lives and change the course of their future, particularly through access to the transformative power of education. 

Through our growing Educate to Empower programme, we are reaching out to women and girls who need our fully- rounded support to find their wings and take flight. We are aiming for our participants to have the knowledge to uplift their emotional and mental well-being (along with access to psychological support, if needed), the confidence and opportunity to access education and learn new skills and the support of the wider community when they seek to forge brave new paths for themselves. 

Let us not allow the pandemic to undo the progress towards gender equality- Sabine Agius Cabourdin

I am weary of the enormous amount of stress the pandemic has created for many women, for example, those working from home and trying to protect their work/life balance and, perhaps,  struggling with isolation as well as mothers juggling between online schooling and work when their employers might not offer the alternative of remote working. Or when employers grant an alternative, the mammoth pressure of multitasking between one, two or perhaps three or more children who are at home distance learning while super mum is trying her utmost to get her job done.

Despite some of the content generated by those jumping on the bandwagon somewhat, I recognise that International Women’s Day shines an important spotlight on the issue of gender disparity and the importance of encouraging young women worldwide to pursue their ambitions. However, I dream of the day when International Women’s Day is no longer an annual celebration but a norm that co-exists as we go about our daily lives. 

Let us not allow the pandemic to undo the progress towards gender equality that has been achieved in recent years. Instead, I hope we can use this unprecedented time as an impetus to create a new and more positive ‘normal’ for our future. As a nation we should strive daily, through our actions and policy decisions and also in the way we lead, to challenge customs, change habits, modify laws, behave and inspire others – especially our younger generation – to create a nation without gender-based discrimination. 

I invite you to join me and the FIDEM team in treating every day as an opportunity to work on the vital task of enabling women and girls across Malta and Gozo to access the support and tools which can enable them to make significant and lasting positive changes in their lives. 

To learn more about FIDEM and support their work, visit www.fidem.org.mt. Search ‘We Connect Malta’ on Facebook and visit www.weconnect.org.mt to join their thriving, supportive online community focused on well-being and open to everyone. 

Dr Sabine Agius Cabourdin, lawyer, FIDEM Charity Foundation founder.