Empowerment Beyond the Ordinary: From Sweeping Floors to Academic Prowess

Abstract

There are some individuals in our communities whose potential cannot be fully fulfilled due to certain personal, social and financial factors. Consequently, such individuals inevitably lose social and personal identity, leading to their disempowerment. While total disempowerment is an elusive state, empowering those with low self-esteem is a convoluted process. This chapter reveals that among other things, it requires strategies for regaining the lost identity and a will power to fight all other negative barriers to empowerment. Above all others, as it will emerge from Peggy's experience; it takes determination and focus on the part of the disempowered individuals to make use of the availed and available opportunities for empowerment. This chapter reveals that such determination does not go without challenges. For instance, Peggy experienced both internal and external obstacles throughout her empowerment process.