By Nichole Harwood
When it comes to dedication, Executive Women International (EWI) has proven time and time again that they are ready to rise above any challenge to achieve their goal no matter how long it takes. Their goal? Bringing women from diverse backgrounds together, helping them enhance personal and professional development in the business world while encouraging community involvement. The organization has been pursuing this goal since 1978.
Holly Norton with the EWI Albuquerque Chapter said from promoting member firms, to providing personal and professional development of women they help, her chapter works hard to ensure the success of their mission statement. .
“This is an organization that created a space for women to realize their executive potential and their potential in the business world,” Norton said.
Futhermore, the EWI Albuquerque Chapter also works hard to give back to their community through philanthropic ventures. Of the philanthropic ventures, they focus strongly on promoting literacy among the youth of New Mexico. The EWI Albuquerque Chapter achieves this goal through their Annual Reading Rally, a time when local celebrities read to the children of the community. This year’s rally hosted UNM Lobo Baseball players to read to second graders. In addition to the event, Norton said her chapter donated school supplies and books to the second graders of Hodgin Elementary.
On top of promoting literacy through events, the EWI Albuquerque Chapter also provides two separate scholarships every year. The first goes to a student at the University of New Mexico and is exclusive to the Albuquerque chapter while the other scholarship is a staple of EWI known as Adult Students in Scholastic Transition Scholarship (ASIST). This scholarship, as its namesake suggests, is meant to help a student in scholastic transition who has just returned to college, more popularly known as a nontraditional student. By providing a scholarship to a nontraditional student, the EWI Albuquerque Chapter hopes to ease the financial burden as a nontraditional student may not only juggle work and school, but parenthood or caretaking of their aging parents.
In addition to the scholarship, members of the EWI Albuquerque Chapter benefit by expanding their professional development by listening to monthly speakers and taking part in the chapter’s professional development webinars.
As for their future, the EWI Albuquerque Chapter hopes to strengthen the women of their community as they reach women of all age demographics while helping them realize the value they can receive through EWI.
“This group created a platform for women to grow and to realize that they had more potential than they ever knew they had and I think that’s one of the things that makes us continue to go on,” Norton said.
