Two teenagers with a passion for empowerment will join the Deputy Governor for International Women’s Day.

Alison Crocket will launch a campaign today to find a pair of young women in Bermuda who will shadow her during the worldwide event next month.

She asked girls aged between 14 and 18 to share video messages with their own goals as well as ideas for supporting the women around them.

Ms Crocket said: “International Women’s Day is celebrated every year.

“Through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who I work for, we launched a campaign last year called Ambassador For A Day.

“The idea is to highlight the need for more women in empowered positions in governance and across the board, at decision-making initiatives.

“We really wanted to take part in that and we thought it would be great for Bermuda if young women were interested in coming forward and finding out a bit about what it is to be Deputy Governor.

“I’m extremely excited about welcoming the successful candidates to Government House for the day and to find out a bit more about what’s here, and to hopefully get that message over about young women reaching into powerful positions.”

Ms Crocket said her duties were different every day but she wanted to offer a taste of her role alongside the opportunity for teenagers to hear from other successful women.

She explained: “I’ve been here six months now, I can tell you that no two days have been the same, so it’s very hard to describe a day in the life of a Deputy Governor.

“What we’re hoping to do is give the successful candidates a bit of a flavour of what we do here.

“We will certainly be attending the International Women’s Day celebrations at City Hall, we will be having lunch with some of the most prominent women, I hope, on the island and hearing a bit about their lives also.

“We will certainly be looking at how we, as women, can support more vulnerable women on the island and that’s something that I feel very strongly about, in that we’re only as strong as our most vulnerable communities.

“On International Women’s Day we will be looking at the most vulnerable women and hoping to highlight what their support needs are and see what is available to them and how we can help.”

When asked what she hoped the video entries would include, Ms Crocket said: “First and foremost is a passion for the issue, for the empowerment of women and for giving all women a chance to be everything that they possibly can be, so something from each of the candidates about what’s important to them — what their dreams are, their ambitions, and what they hope for not just for themselves but for women on the island and for women across the world.”

The winners can expect to be inspired by those they encounter on IWD, on March 8.

Ms Crocket said: “I hope they will take some ideas, I hope they will see through the women that they meet on that day what the possibilities are, what your options might be and maybe some tips about how to get ahead, not from me, I hasten to add, but from lots of people who they will meet on the day.”

The Deputy Governor, who was sworn in last July after a post as head of the Foreign Office’s Anti-Corruption Unit, based in London, believed IWD offered an opportunity to focus attention on the difficulties faced by women every day.

She said: “We have made many gains, even in my lifetime there’s been enormous steps forward in women’s opportunities and equality, but nonetheless, even in the most progressive of countries the fact is that women don’t earn as much as men.

“The fact is that women are seriously underrepresented in positions of power, in governance, in business and in every other sector.

“There is still a need for all countries to be addressing those inequities and the fact is that across the world, when you look at the more global picture, the plight of women in many countries has not moved forward and in some countries has moved back.

“It’s beholden on all of us to be aware of that and to be making representations to address that because the role of women in many countries today is worse that it has been, ever.

“Women are disproportionately more likely to be held in slavery, women are more likely to be trafficked, all of the modern day atrocities that are committed are more often committed against women.”

Ms Crocket said the plight of women in conflict zones was “rarely raised and yet they are disproportionately affected and much less likely to have started the fight in the first place”.

She added: “We shouldn’t be complacent despite all of the many benefits and many gains that many of us are enjoying today.”