• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Mother Teresa

For those of you asking “who is Mother Teresa?” – shame on you! After a life dedicated to charity and humanitarian work, she is regarded as one of the most selfless people to have ever lived, and her efforts were recognized in 1979 when she won the Nobel Peace Prize. However, one of the most admirable things about Mother Teresa is that she wasn’t doing it for the recognition – she spent nearly 30 years of her life helping others before anybody even knew who she was. She believed in doing whatever was possible to help, whether big or small, with her philosophy being; “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”

Billie Jean King

With 39 Grand Slam titles to her name and 6 separate spells as world number one, Billie Jean King is undoubtedly one of the greatest female tennis players to ever grace the game – however, it is her battle for equal rights for sporting women that she will be truly remembered for. In 1973 she took on and defeated self professed chauvinist Bobby Riggs in ‘The Battle of the Sexes’. A former world number one himself, Riggs’ defeat proved once and for all that women deserved both respect and equality in the world of sport. This wasn’t just about tennis though, as Billie Jean King described sports as “a microcosm of society”, and believed her actions could help improve women’s rights all over the world.

Hedy Lamarr

If you’re wondering where you’ve seen that name before, it was probably on the credits of an old black and white movie that you saw on late night TV. Lamarr was a well-known actress and during the 1940s she was considered to be one of the most beautiful women in the world.

It takes self-confidence and talent to be a successful actress, sure, but that’s not why she’s one of my role-models. In an era when women had to look beautiful but not appear to be intelligent, this actress, along with a male composer she recruited, invented a frequency signal device that could be used to stop torpedoes from going off-course.

As you can imagine, devices like this were important during the early to mid-forties but Lamarr really didn’t get the recognition she deserved until 1962 when an updated version of their invention was first used on Navy ships. If it wasn’t for Lamarr’s idea we may not have had wi-fi, Bluetooth or GPS.

Although she didn’t live to see it, Hedy Lamarr was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart’s is a story of both success and tragedy, full of adventuring and pioneering for women’s rights. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, and was rewarded with the Distinguished Flying Cross for her efforts – again, she was the first woman to receive this. While other women were being held back by a male dominated society, Amelia was soaring through the clouds, breaking records, and having the time of her life. Her message to other women was that “the woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.”

Irena Sendlerowa

Irena Sendlerowa was a social worker and nurse from Poland who smuggled 2,500 children out of Warsaw during World War II. The children were given new papers and safe accommodation until the end of the war.

She was responsible for saving more Jews than anyone else during the holocaust. Why is this woman’s story not taught in schools?

Sendlerowa was eventually captured by the Gestapo and was tortured and sentenced to death. Even that didn’t stop her. She was rescued moments before she was to be executed and returned to Warsaw under another name. She continued her work, and found permanent homes for the children who had lost their parents.

Sendlerowa was nominated, twice, for the Nobel Peace Prize and several other awards but her favorite was the Order of the Smile.  That’s the international award that children give to adults who have distinguished themselves in the care, love, and aid of children.