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Nicole Joseph-Chin is the chief innovator, founder and CEO of Ms. Brafit Limited; a social enterprise in Trinidad who focused on healthy breasts as a catalyst for social impact. [1]
She is a Vital Voices #VV100 Women and 2015 Vital Voices VV Lead Fellow. [2] She participated in several VV leadership and mentoring programs between 2015 and 2021. [3]
Joseph-Chin studied at the University of the West Indies and St. George's College in Trinidad and Tobago. [4] She worked in the banking industry before creating Brafit in 2002. [5]
She is a 2011 alumna of the US State Department IVLP. [1] She has conducted seminars and workshops and has been hosted for speaking engagements about breast health, accurate fitting of bras, mastectomy care, social entrepreneurship, economic empowerment, and innovative thinking. [6]
She was elected Executive Director of the Women's Entrepreneurial Network of the Caribbean (an initiative of the US State Department) in 2013 and served as a regional board member until 2016. [7]
In 2014, she pioneered the MOOC Camp series at the US Embassy in Port of Spain and in the same year, provided facilitation for a workshop on Innovative Thinking for the CARIRI Business Bootcamp series. [8]
Joseph-Chin has designed breast-care, prevention, awareness and survivorship tools, including the "Treatment Companion", a journal that encourages women to store their medical records in a transportable and attractive package as well as the "Pink Slip Project", "Beauty Beyond the Bruises". In October 2016 Joseph-Chin introduced the global and multi-lingual breast care awareness campaign "The Gesture That Saves" - in San Francisco California to 100 global peers from 40 countries during the VV100 retreat. [9]
Joseph-Chin has designed a comprehensive breast-care solutions toolkit and in 2016 was working on a design for a reproductive-health advocacy program. [9]
A nursing bra is a specialized brassiere that provides additional support to women who are lactating and permits comfortable breastfeeding without the need to remove the bra. This is accomplished by specially designed bra cups that include flaps which can be opened with one hand to expose the nipple. The flap is usually held closed with a simple clasp or hook.
Cleavage is the narrow depression or hollow between the breasts of a woman. The superior portion of cleavage may be accentuated by clothing such as a low-cut neckline that exposes the division, and often the term is used to describe the low neckline itself, instead of the term décolletage. Joseph Breen, head of the U.S. film industry's Production Code Administration, coined the term in its current meaning when evaluating the 1943 film The Outlaw, starring Jane Russell. The term was explained in Time magazine on August 5, 1946. It is most commonly used in the parlance of Western female fashion to refer to necklines that reveal or emphasize décolletage.
Sarah L. Thornton is a writer, ethnographer and sociologist of culture. Thornton has authored four books and many articles about artists, the art market, bodies, people, culture, technology and design, the history of music technology, dance clubs, raves, cultural hierarchies, subcultures, and ethnographic research methods.
The history of bras is closely tied to the social status of women, the evolution of fashion, and shifting views of the female body over time.
Bra size indicates the size characteristics of a bra. While there is a number of bra sizing systems in use around the world, the bra sizes usually consist of a number, indicating the size of the band around the woman's torso, and one or more letters that indicate the breast cup size. Bra cup sizes were invented in 1932 while band sizes became popular in the 1940s. For convenience, because of the impracticality of determining the size dimensions of each breast, the volume of the bra cup, or cup size, is based on the difference between band length and over-the-bust measurement.
A bra, short for brassiere or brassière, is a form-fitting underwear that is primarily used to support and cover a woman's breasts. A typical bra consists of a chest band that wraps around the torso, supporting two breast cups that are held in place by shoulder straps. A bra usually fastens in the back, using a hook and eye fastener, although bras are available in a large range of styles and sizes, including front-fastening and backless designs. Some bras are designed for specific functions, such as nursing bras to facilitate breastfeeding or sports bras to minimize discomfort during exercise.
A training bra is a lightweight brassiere designed for girls who have begun to develop breasts, at Tanner stage II and III. The training bra is intended to be worn during puberty when the breasts are not yet large enough to fit a standard-sized bra. Training bras often provide minimal or no support, and may serve aesthetic purposes to fulfill cultural norms and local beauty standards.
Vital Voices Global Partnership is an American international, 501(c)(3), non-profit, non-governmental organization that works with women leaders in the areas of economic empowerment, women's political participation, and human rights. The organization is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
An underwire bra is a brassiere that utilizes a thin, semi-circular strip of rigid material fitted inside the brassiere fabric to help lift, separate, shape, and support a woman's breasts. The wire may be made of metal, plastic, or resin. It is sewn into the bra fabric and under each cup, from the center gore to under the wearer's armpit. Many different brassiere designs incorporate an underwire, including shelf bras, demi bras, nursing bras, and bras built into other articles of clothing, such as tank tops, dresses and swimsuits.
Susan Miller, recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting, is perhaps best known as the author/performer of the critically acclaimed one woman play, My Left Breast and as Executive Producer and writer for the award-winning web series Anyone But Me. For her work on the web series she won the first Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in Writing Original New Media.
Sunitha Krishnan is an Indian social activist and chief functionary and co-founder of Prajwala, a non-governmental organization that rescues, rehabilitates and reintegrates sex-trafficked victims into society. She was awarded India's fourth highest civilian award the Padma Shri in 2016.
Regina Honu, is a Ghanaian social entrepreneur, software developer and founder of Soronko Solutions, a software development company in Ghana. She opened Soronko Academy, the first coding and human-centered design school for children and young adults in West Africa. Honu has received multiple awards, including being named by CNN as one of the 12 inspirational women who rock STEM. She was also named as one of the six women making an impact in Tech in Africa and one of the ten female entrepreneurs to watch in emerging economies.
Free the Nipple is a topfreedom campaign created in 2012 during pre-production of a 2014 film of the same name. The campaign highlights the general convention of allowing men to appear topless in public while considering it sexual or indecent for women to do the same and asserts that this difference is discriminatory, contravening women's rights. The campaign argues that it should be legally and culturally acceptable for women to bare their nipples in public.
Charley Ferrer became the first Latina Doctor of Human Sexuality in the United States in 2000 after receiving her doctoral degree from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. She is a clinical sexologist and award-winning author of several books on sexual health, self-empowerment, and breast cancer. A pioneer in the field of sexual health and empowerment, Dr. Ferrer began her journey providing workshops on sexual health and empowerment to women in Evergreen State College and across the Pacific Northwest. Her first book, The W.I.S.E. Journal for the Sensual Woman became an international success and lead to her invitation to lecture throughout the US and Latin America; where she taught medical providers and mental health practitioners the value of respecting their patients’ sexual orientations and preferences to enable physicians to provide the best care possible.
Esther Ijewere is a Nigerian media and communications specialist, author, women and children's rights advocate. She also serves as a columnist for The Guardian and the CEO of Women of Rubies, an organization committed to empowering and celebrating women from diverse backgrounds.
Kirthi Jayakumar is a peace educator, a women, peace, and security and feminist foreign policy practitioner, lawyer and writer. She is a Commonwealth Scholar, a Vital Voices (VV) Lead Fellow, a VV Engage Fellow, a Local Pathways Fellow, and a World Pulse Impact Leader. Kirthi is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She served as an advisor to the G7 through the Women7 under the German Presidency of the G7 in 2022, the Japanese Presidency of the G7 in 2023, and currently under the Italian Presidency of the G7, and was named as one of UN Women Asia Pacific's 30 for 2030.
In Western society, since the 1960s, there has been a slow but steady trend towards bralessness among a number of women, especially millennials, who have expressed opposition to and are giving up wearing bras. In 2016, Allure magazine fashion director Rachael Wang wrote, "Going braless is as old as feminism, but it seems to be bubbling to the surface more recently as a direct response to Third Wave moments like #freethenipple hashtag campaign, increased trans-visibility like Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair cover ... and Lena Dunham's show Girls."
No Bra Day is an annual observance on October 13 on which women are encouraged to go braless as a means to encourage breast cancer awareness. No Bra Day was initially observed on July 9, 2011, but within three years it had moved to the 13th day of the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, October. Users on social media are encouraged to post using the hashtag #nobraday to promote awareness of breast cancer symptoms and to encourage gender equality. Some users on social media sites also encourage women to post pictures of themselves not wearing a bra. Some women embrace No Bra Day as a political statement while others prefer the comfort of discarding what they view as a restrictive, uncomfortable garment.
Chidera Eggerue is a British Nigerian writer and fashion blogger. She is best known for her book, What a Time to Be Alone, and the online campaign #SaggyBoobsMatter.
Ibilola Amao is a Nigerian and British engineer, principal consultant of Lonadek Services and consultant for the vision 2020 initiative. She received several awards such as most active women business enterprise IWEC 2016, Energy Institute Champion 2016, C3E international woman of distinction Award, Access Bank “W” 100, and the 2019 Forbes Africa rising star Award. She was a Vital Voices (VV) GROW fellow, a member of vv100 and a WEConnect international fellow. Ibilola was also the co-founder of the cedar STEM and entrepreneurship hub.
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