As the world gath­ers to cel­e­brate In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day to­mor­row, right here in T&T there are many women who con­tin­ue to be fear­less trail­blaz­ers.

From those en­ter­pris­ing en­tre­pre­neurs to the smart­ly-dressed ex­ec­u­tives at the C-Suite lev­el mak­ing tough de­ci­sions with ease, women con­tin­ue to leave their own in­deli­ble mark on every as­pect of the cor­po­rate world and be­yond.

The cred­it union move­ment is no dif­fer­ent.

Di­anne Joseph, who is chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer of the Co-op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union League of T&T, has al­so been a pi­o­neer in that sphere for over two decades.

She spoke can­did­ly to the Busi­ness Guardian about her ex­pe­ri­ence while call­ing on women to con­tin­ue to sup­port each oth­er as she al­so shared nuggets of ad­vice.

Not­ing that this year’s In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day theme is In­vest in Women: Ac­cel­er­ate Progress, Joseph as she gave her greet­ings to all women and girls, ac­knowl­edged that women have long bro­ken what many call the prover­bial glass ceil­ing.

“We have been lead­ing in all as­pects,” she said, adding, “We man­age large or­gan­i­sa­tions, achieve sig­nif­i­cant mile­stones, we serve as at­tor­neys, doc­tors, me­chan­ics, en­gi­neers, labour­ers, CEOs, fi­nan­cial con­trollers, chefs, plumbers, me­dia pro­fes­sion­als and more. The ar­eas that were once ful­ly male dom­i­nat­ed have been on the de­cline.”

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Joseph, it’s still not equal pay for equal work.

“In some cas­es, women who have been per­form­ing the same job as a man are paid a low­er com­pen­sa­tion,” Joseph said.

While this may be daunt­ing, she urged women not to be de­terred but to re­main fo­cussed on their goals and as­pi­ra­tions.

“We must un­der­stand that we may be abased at times. But I im­plore you to not let that abase­ment de­mor­alise us to the point that it af­fects our phys­i­cal and men­tal well be­ing. In­stead, we must qui­et­ly con­tin­ue to pur­sue our goals and dreams and suc­cess will be the end re­sult,” she em­pha­sised.

Joseph al­so drew on her own ex­pe­ri­ences as chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer and as an ac­com­plished leader with­in the cred­it union sec­tor, hav­ing had the ho­n­our to meet and in­ter­act with men and women of all walks of life.

De­scrib­ing the move­ment by its very na­ture as a peo­ple-cen­tred en­ti­ty, Joseph ex­plained that apart from her role as COO, she of­ten has to per­form the role of an ed­u­ca­tor to the many cred­it union mem­bers and even out­side of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

“This has al­lowed me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to un­der­stand, to a greater ex­tent, the chal­lenges faced by some women in this ever-chang­ing world. For ex­am­ple, our sin­gle moth­ers con­tin­ue to strug­gle to make ends meet, to send the chil­dren to school, take care of the home and in many in­stances, to do so with very lim­it­ed fi­nan­cial re­sources.

“While in re­al­i­ty, not all women will ho­n­our and con­struc­tive­ly ac­cept this com­mit­ment, there are many who do so on a dai­ly ba­sis. The need for in­clu­sion, there­fore, is crit­i­cal. “We must em­brace every­one re­gard­less of their sta­tus and seek to bring out the best in those who have been gen­uine­ly strug­gling to take the next step,” Joseph said.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she em­pha­sised that there must be the recog­ni­tion of women in the so­cial, eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al, and po­lit­i­cal achieve­ments and more so, they must be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to prove them­selves.

“I know women have that in­ner de­sire. They have that dream and they have that vi­sion to move up the suc­cess lad­der. They want to be fi­nan­cial­ly in­de­pen­dent and we must sup­port that thrust. The cred­it union move­ment and cred­it unions con­tin­ue to be that ve­hi­cle where women can achieve their goals and dreams. They have es­tab­lished sav­ing ac­counts and have tak­en loans to ed­u­cate them­selves and their chil­dren. They pur­sue MBAs and oth­er pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tion be­cause they want to equal­ly share that pro­fes­sion­al space. In fact, they make good lead­ers, they sel­dom com­pro­mise and take risk.

“They per­form be­cause they know that they have achieved. In my ex­pe­ri­ence as an ed­u­ca­tor, the class­rooms have been over­ly pop­u­lat­ed with the fe­male gen­der. They are mov­ing bar­ri­ers and step­ping out with con­fi­dence in what would have been once con­sid­ered as a male dom­i­nat­ed space. I salute those women and I ask oth­ers to em­u­late you,” she added.

A woman’s jour­ney to suc­cess how­ev­er, can at times be ar­du­ous es­pe­cial­ly if there is sel­dom or no sup­port even in emo­tion­al ways.

“There is the sto­ry of jeal­ous­ly in the re­la­tion­ship and the woman may have to strug­gle to gain her own fi­nances, to ed­u­cate her­self or the take a po­si­tion to step out and step up in­to the sphere of ex­cel­lence and in­de­pen­dence. There is a view that a woman’s place is in the home. Sad­ly, I am not in a po­si­tion to sup­port such a view. In the past cen­turies, maybe. But not in this era,” Joseph said.

Even in the midst of their tri­als and tribu­la­tions, women con­tin­ue to make count­less sac­ri­fices to move up the lad­der and in do­ing so they of­ten pave the way for their chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion­al and oth­er ad­vance­ments.

“Many of the young boys and girls have been suc­cess­ful through the best uni­ver­si­ties and have been set­tling down as pro­fes­sion­als. This could not have been eas­i­ly achieved with­out that gen­tle but pow­er­ful touch, thought and sac­ri­fices of our women,” Joseph said, as she al­so salut­ed the men who not on­ly worked with women to achieve their heart’s de­sire but al­so con­tin­ue to as­sure them that they are val­ued and re­spect­ed in the world.

Some men, Joseph not­ed, al­so have made their own sac­ri­fices to care for the chil­dren, dili­gent­ly main­tain the home and pro­vide fi­nan­cial sup­port while their fe­male part­ners to pur­sue their stud­ies.

In in­stances where op­por­tu­ni­ties are lim­it­ed re­gard­ing the ad­vance­ment of women, Joseph, a moth­er of two pro­fes­sion­als, rec­om­mend­ed that gov­ern­ments can con­sid­er im­ple­ment­ing an as­sess­ment and work with those through so­cial pro­grammes for in­stance, to en­able them to ad­vance from one lev­el to the next.

“There is a need to seek out and reach out to our women, to in­clude them in mul­ti-faceted roles and to aid their suc­cess. It can on­ly re­dound to the bet­ter­ment of the fu­ture gen­er­a­tion and the strength­en­ing of the fab­ric of our so­ci­ety, a so­ci­ety that, at times, seems to be falling apart. Our lead­ers may want to de­sign and build in­fra­struc­ture meet­ing the needs of women and girls, which may al­low the goal of in­clu­sion to flour­ish to the point at which all women are val­ued and re­spect­ed,” Joseph ex­plained.

As she con­tin­ued to en­cour­age her coun­ter­parts to strive to­wards their goals aca­d­e­m­ic or oth­er­wise, Joseph added, “You have un­locked po­ten­tial and you must look to­wards en­hanc­ing your skills and com­pe­ten­cies with every pass­ing day, strive for ex­cel­lence and reach for the stars.”

In this vein, Joseph not­ed that this year’s theme there­fore, was not on­ly time­ly but ap­pro­pri­ate.

Re­it­er­at­ing her call for women to sup­port and strength­en each oth­er, Joseph af­firmed, “Do not be wa­vered. Do not be in­ti­mat­ed by the pres­sures that may mount in the work­place, the home, on the streets or so­cial me­dia. These are for a time. As of now, I have nev­er seen a case where hon­esty and the will pow­er to suc­ceed and to stand up for what you be­lieve have failed. You have the pow­er in­side of you, use it to you best and pos­i­tive ad­van­tage. You can do it...Con­tin­ue to strive for all-round per­son­al de­vel­op­ment that will al­low you to ob­tain and hold on to your space in this very de­mand­ing and ag­gres­sive eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment.”