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By Kris Harrell

A locally based organization aims to empower women through conferences, events and networking, hoping to help them triumph over tragedy and trauma. 

I Am My Sisters’ Keeper is an online empowerment group of over 2,000 women both online and in person founded through Vision Makers Ministry.

The group was founded by Deirdre Parker Jackson in 2021 after multiple deaths in her family, including the loss of her mother and father. 

“It was women who kept me lifted up and kept me from just falling apart,” Jackson said. “I went through severe depression and anxiety because it happened quickly… It was women and this community who were sending out prayers and sending me different books on healing and overcoming trauma. A few months later in 2021, my stepdad was murdered, so I was like, ‘I have to do something to help someone else, because if I’m going through this and I have a support system, what about other women who don’t have it?’” 

One thing that I Am My Sisters’ Keeper does is organize and host free women’s empowerment conferences and events. There, attendees receive free gifts for mental health, wellness, self-care and more. 

At the conferences, I Am My Sisters’ Keeper organizers invite women to share advice and testimonials on their struggles and achievements. From there, women can also network among themselves. 

Additionally, every year the group selects and awards women to receive the Woman of the Year Certificate. 

“We invite – as far as the capacity is concerned – anywhere from 100-200 women, and we bring them in together from across the nation and around the world to fellowship to come together and share their stories of triumph over tragedy,” Jackson said. “We are a healing organization; we heal together because healing is a process.” 

The organization focuses on empowering women on financial literacy, mental health and wellness, education and social networking.

The group also works with other organizations like Save-A-Child Outreach Center, His Hands and Feet and nursing homes in Butler County donating supplies. 

Additionally, the group also has an internal organization, Prestige Pearls, which focuses on young women and their well-being. Part of the internal group is to help organize educational and cultural trips to museums like the Legacy Museum and the Hank Williams Museum, or to see shows at the Ritz Theatre. 

“We realized that when adults go through trauma and are affected directly, younger girls are affected indirectly,” Jackson said. “They have to watch their mother suffer, and so we realized that we have to nurture them, too, and we want to get them prepared for the real world with [the] soft skills they need.”

Prestige Pearls also awards scholarships to those in the area, based on the recipient’s showcase of sisterhood through mentoring and leadership skills. 

One of these scholarship recipients was Eva Shealy, a Greenville High School student, who was awarded for her leadership in Junior Officers Training Corps (JROTC), band and in her community. 

“I was honored to have received the I am My Sisters’ Keeper scholarship award this year,” Shealy said. “Although before being awarded this scholarship, I had not known of the I Am My Sisters’ Keeper foundation. I am thrilled to be involved with this program and now and help them empower more young people to mentor others.”