Definition: Empowerment

One is empowered when one lives life from a position of
responsibility. Knowing, with certainly, that they are the creator of all of their life experiences whether good or bad. An empowered person is Victim to no one and no thing. An empowered person is authentic, stands centered in the truth of who they are and honors personal boundaries. An empowered person makes choices based upon what is rather than what is perceived with the consideration of what is in the highest and best good of all.

Wikipedia:

Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social or economic strength of individuals and communities. It often involves the empowered developing confidence in their own capacities.

The term Human Empowerment covers a vast landscape of meanings, interpretations, definitions and disciplines ranging from psychology and philosophy to the highly commercialized Self-Help industry and Motivational sciences.

Sociological empowerment often addresses members of groups that social discrimination processes have excluded from decision-making processes through - for example - discrimination based on disability, race, ethnicity, religion, or gender.

The process which enables one to gain power,authority and influence over others,institutions or society. Empowerment is probably the totality of the following or similar capabilities:-

* Having decision-making power of one's own
* Having access to information and resources for taking proper decision
* Having a range of options from which you can make choices (not just yes/no, either/or.)
* Ability to exercise assertiveness in collective decision making
* Having positive thinking on the ability to make change
* Ability to learn skills for improving one's personal or group power.
* Ability to change others’ perceptions by democratic means.
* Involving in the growth process and changes that is never ending and self-initiated
* Increasing one's positive self-image and overcoming stigma
* Increasing one's ability in discreet thinking to sort out right and wrong

In short, empowerment is the process that allows one to gain the knowledge, skill-sets and attitude needed to cope with the changing world and the circumstances in which one lives.

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