Patrice Frith Hayward has made it her life’s mission to empower women.She’s shared advice on how to lead a happy, well-balanced life as the radio host of Real Women, Real Talk and is now preparing to tackle a new challenge as executive director of the Women’s Resource Centre.“Many women think [WRC helps] someone who has been raped or abused or whatever the case is, and while we champion sexual assault that’s not all we do,” she explained.”Over the past three years the WRC has changed its model from a crisis response model to a prevention model, so we are now concentrating more on being proactive with our self-esteem, parenting and sexual harassment workshops.”Her predecessor, Elaine Williams, did “wonderful things for the WRC”, she said.“I won’t necessarily do things exactly the way she did,” said Mrs Frith Hayward. “But I know there is work to be done in the area of women’s empowerment and women’s issues and I want to be a part of the process of getting the work done.“It’s a huge challenge and I am certainly looking forward to it and I am not afraid at all. I am eagerly looking forward to doing what I can.”The centre will host a pyjama party for “divas” at Landfall restaurant on Friday from 7.30pm until 10.30pm. Women are asked to wear pyjamas for the event.Carmen Hutchinson Miller, a researcher from the University of the West Indies in Barbados, will talk about a range of issues including the history of feminism, women’s empowerment and human sexuality.“It’s not the Old Navy mismatched pyjamas with the durag. Diva pyjamas could be anything tasteful, even flannel ones, it just depends on whether it makes you feel like a diva,” said Mrs Frith Hayward:Mrs Frith Hayward has served as the education officer at WRC since October. She is the founder of empowerment group Ladies, Let’s Get It Together. Through it she organised regular retreats for women to share their dreams and encourage each other.She said: “[Before starting the group] I looked around and just saw women were not where they should be as far as suffering from low self-esteem and in unhealthy relationships and even the unhealthy view that some women have of themselves.“I had a problem with that and when you look around women are doing great things around the world and we have some amazing women in this Island.“I don’t think that we have been pushing ourselves and each other, so I really became interested in women’s empowerment because I have had women who pushed me and paved the way for me and helped empower me.”Mrs Frith Hayward said women who attended those first few weekend retreats would leave with their heads held a little higher.“At the end of the day we all vow to stay together and stay in touch and many of them do and we often try to encourage them to sit with people they don’t know and exchange names and numbers and stay in contact.“I have had women cry at the end knowing that there are people who care, there are people who will champion them and stand up for them.“Some people just don’t know they can reach out to people. Many people feel that they are alone, but I’m thankful that women who come to the retreats bring people who they think will need it.”She hopes to offer similar retreats for the WRC.She also hopes to help educate more people in the community about what the WRC does and encourage personal and career growth.“We want to let women know they have rights and a voice and we are there to assist them. We want to be known as a full-fledged resource centre that women [know they] can come to when they are having issues and know we are there to assist without judging them or having to worry about who is going to know about it.“The services we offer are highly confidential and we don’t want anyone to ever feel uncomfortable with coming to us.”Mrs Frith Hayward ends her job hosting Real Women, Real Talk this month on April 1, to concentrate her efforts on running the WRC.For more information telephone 295-3882.