Overlake Girls' Empowerment Conference May 22

Coming This Spring—Join Us for an Online Girls’ Empowerment Series

Hosted by Kate L. (‘22) 

I hope all of you are doing well! I know these are very uncertain and unpredictable times for everyone, and many of us are feeling like we are losing out on many things that we love. But, amidst this stressful time, I think we can find a small sense of silver lining by standing together. If this pandemic has taught us nothing else, it has taught us the importance of supporting and lifting each other up. This is the time to open our hearts and minds to the experiences of others—even if without leaving our homes.

 

Since the beginning of this year, I have been planning a Girls’ Empowerment Conference that was scheduled to take place at our school on May 9th. The aim of this conference was to bring together students from around the Seattle area to learn about how we can promote women's leadership and equality. With the help of my club, Girl Power—Educating the Future, we were hoping to address issues from educational inequality for girls in developing countries, to the unequal representation of girls in STEM, to promoting women in politics. Through speakers and workshops, our conference aimed to inspire students to change these unjust systems and to equip girls with the leadership, courage, and awareness necessary to do so.

 

Unfortunately, we were forced to cancel our live conference due to COVID-19, but the topics and amazing speakers we had lined up still needed to be shared, so I set my mind to brainstorm on how to translate the conference into a format that could reach you online. Out of this brainstorming came the idea for the Online Girls’ Empowerment Series.

 

I am so excited to share this Online Girls’ Empowerment Series with all of you this spring. This will be a weekly opportunity for you to learn from some inspirational mentors in our community. There will be a mix of live seminars and pre-recorded interviews available to you. You will be able to hear from leaders in our school community, politicians, and founders of incredible organizations. They will share with you their life paths and work, share success stories, and help you learn how you can raise your voice and fight for equality.

 

Some speakers that will be highlighted in this Series are Rainn Wilson (star of NBC’s ‘The Office’), Mahnaz Javid (President and CEO of the Mona Foundation), State Senator Manka Dhingra, and Archika Dogra (founder of The EduStem Initiative). All interviews will be posted to Vidigami, and there will be updates on the Overlake US Info page and the new CommUNITY website!

 

I invite you to tune into the Online Girls’ Empowerment Series, and to join me in learning about how we can become inclusive change makers so that we can grow into the next generation without being hindered by gender inequality.



In the words of Malala Yousafzai, “We cannot succeed when half of us are being held back.”