OUR NEWS

20 Mar 2022

New Edition of “Own Your Voice”

Own Your Voice (OYV) is all about giving and being a voice for women all over the world, with a special focus on Indigenous women of the Sierra Otomí-Tepehua region, women who PSYDEH empowers through its different programs. The project aims to increase visibility towards our media channels thus increasing possibilities, interactions, and potential, by giving power to our messages of gender equality, sustainability, empowerment, and many others. 

Despite the pandemic and other obstacles, OYV was brought back a few months after the first edition thanks to our Global Collaborators Program and our perseverance at PSYDEH. We are back and for social impact!

So, what’s new? The new edition focuses on quality instead of quantity, but what does it mean? 

 

Phase 1: Increase Brand Awareness

Phase 1 of OYV has the goal to increase brand awareness. In this new edition, led by Danièla Degraux – Global Engagement and Alejandro Enríquez – Field Corps Trainer at PSYDEH, the focus not only lies in increasing visibility as an end goal; the process towards this goal is equally important. How? A person of influence becomes part of our team and contributes to our end goals by sharing his skills and knowledge. In other words, the process is inclusive, creative, and interactive. By being more inclusive and creative, the message not only becomes stronger – we gain valuable knowledge in the process of increasing visibility through the audience of our ally. 

In this first edition, we couldn’t dream of a better kickoff ally than Jonathan Kubben. Jonathan is a respected public speaker and philanthropist. He has built a big audience over the years through his concept “Mom I’m Fine” where he travels the world letting his Mexican mom know he is fine through his social media posts. Jonathan has given a series of Masterclasses around the world, and for the start of our new edition, he agreed to give us a series of three workshops around Storytelling – a skill we happen to need within our work. Three Fridays in a row, Jonathan gave both the field and satellite team a solid base to apply in our work. We learned about visual identity, rethought our values, learned how to use our voice and own our power. Moreover, the timing of these workshops gives us the opportunity to implement this knowledge into our new three-year project Red Sierra Madre. Once the final story is posted on Jonathan’s Instagram as well as ours, phase 1 is completed and successful! 

 

Phase 2: Creating a social enterprise

The last phase of OYV takes the collaboration to a slightly different level by teaming up with an existing Mexican accessories brand. This brand, along with a women-led craft cooperative from the state of Hidalgo, will work as a team to create visibility for their community’s culture and artisanal heritage through the creation of new, unique, handcrafted items. This collaboration also has other positive effects as well: the participating women will be co-creators of the pieces and will get a fair economic payment, and part of the sales generated will be invested in PSYDEH’s women partners who live in the region where we work.

Although we already want to share all the details, everything about this collaboration is still under wraps for now! Stay tuned to find out who will be SDDTV’s brand partner to create a successful social enterprise with PSYDEH and the women of Hidalgo.

Subscribe to the Co-op Report Sierra Madre to see how women in Mexico are owning their voice through our initiatives and programs!

Author: Danièla Degraux

PSYDEH Global Engagement

 

 

 

 

psydeh

PSYDEH is a non-profit civil association, which was formed by the initiative of a group of young women from the municipality of Santiago Tulantepec in the State of Hidalgo. PSYDEH is committed to working with and for the most vulnerable communities in the region through the promotion of a Sustainable Human Development.