Jude Kelly
Founder, WOW – Women of the World
Women are uniting through global connections, bold ideas and unstoppable change to empower each other and drive equality forward for an inclusive future.
Girls in Nepal are in a Teams meeting with girls from WOW Rotherham. Women from WOW Rio are making plans to help co-curate the festival in Athens, and WOW Apollo in Harlem has just hosted women from the Seychelles. These are a fertile mix of amazing ideas, profound connections and huge optimism as we all empower each other to dream more boldly and act more resolutely.
Collective empowerment, shared resilience
Empowerment is a shorthand word and often seems to suggest that one person has a source of power. They then give it to another. Yet, in my experience, empowerment is like the circular economy: ideas, expertise, lived experience, plus local and global perspectives are shared, reused, built on and repurposed as everyone commits to the complex process of change.
The empowerment of women and girls (and boys and men and non-binary people) is what we do. We’re a global alliance of people working together for an equal and inclusive future for us all because everyone deserves freedom from the patriarchy.
I founded WOW – Women of the World 15 years ago and never fail to feel moved and inspired by the women across the world in every context who lead their communities in the planning and executing of these fabulous festivals and events. They empower me. They show me that even in hostile and darkening regimes that some are living in, their determination to tell positive stories of courage, resilience and ingenuity provides joy and action.
Empowerment is like
the circular economy.
Solidarity and progress for women
This month, I’m travelling to WOW Athens and then to WOW Baltimore. Greek women are keenly supporting American women as they struggle to make sense of new policies that directly target work that supports equality and inclusion.
The 5 million people who have taken part are building together across continents and cultural boundaries to retain the determination that progress must speed up, not slow down. Empowerment is the building of confidence through a flow of understanding. It’s not a solo sprint; it’s a relay marathon — and one which we need to keep running together.
