On Tuesday 8th March – we got the opportunity to go to Global HQ for International Women’s Day. We were invited by Kirstie Newman who is Claudia’s mentor from the Global mentoring programme to listen to a very inspiring talk by the filmmaker – Basma Kalifa who talked about the struggles of being a woman in the fashion and media industry.
Many things were discussed – such as how being a woman can narrow down your chances of getting your dream job and how most industries are male-dominated. Thankfully, this is changing as the years go by because of how much it is now spoken about throughout the media, but we feel that we still aren’t all the way there yet. It also makes you think about how hard it must have been for women years ago to get what they wanted and to show their power as men would just shut it down, and although the world is still male-dominated it is finally becoming filled more and more with female voices as time goes by!
After Basma’s talk – we got the chance to speak to a lot of amazing women in the industry whilst eating some great food from the buffet provided for us. There were loads of different types of food (including some delicious mini cupcakes with the Global logo on them!) We spoke to so many different people from the company in so many different roles, hearing about their experiences and also what they do within the industry. It was a great chance to see other women in the roles that we see ourselves doing in the future, especially considering we grew up to see the roles primarily filled with men. We had the time to network and we got the details of people who can help us with our future careers, which was a great way to end an already incredible event.
This whole experience was very inspiring and we are so grateful that we got to be a part of it, so thank you so much to Kirstie for inviting us and especially to Global for hosting the event! We loved every part of it, and even though International Women’s Day has passed we should use every opportunity to celebrate women and how much we have all gone through to get to where we are today.
Gemma Nash and Claudia Duran, Year 12