International Women’s Day 2017
We truly celebrated International Women’s Day in style this year!

Celebrating International Women’s Day in front of Leeds Town Hall
There was an absolutely brilliant turn out at the IWD2017 event held at Leeds Town Hall yesterday. Hundreds of women (and some men too!) attended the event to meet other inspirational women, hear their stories, and find out about what is on offer for women in Leeds.
Women’s
Lives Leeds were very lucky to get lots of space to promote our service and those of our partners. Leeds City Council also kindly offered 2 guest tickets per partner organisation. We had staff, volunteers and Trustee members from all our partner organisations at the event. Our very own Project Manager, Jeannette, courageously took to the stage in front of the huge audience to share her inspiring story and tell everyone about our exciting Women’s Lives Leeds project!

LCC Choir
The day kicked off with the wonderful Leeds City Council choir who sang as everyone mingled and found their seats.
The event was introduced by Cllr Judith Blake who was thrilled to see so many local women and girls at the event. She also made a #BeBoldForChange pledge to challenge bias and and inequality and call it out when women are excluded and spoke of the number of times she has seen the number of women far outweighed by men in political meetings.
LCC Chief Executive Tom Riordan then took the stage and commented “Now I know how it feels!” reinforcing Cllr Blake’s message about the inequality still faced by women in most meetings and events. The Chief Executive spoke of his pledge to compile a list of non-white non-male speakers to make sure that no one in the future can use the excuse “there wasn’t a female/BME/disabled etc. person available to speak”. We welcome this fantastic pledge from Tom Riordan and look forward to more diverse speakers at events in the future!
Next up was the Inspirational Woman of the Community Award – nominations were made by the people of Leeds for deserving women who have done lots to support and improve their communities. 9 women from across Leeds were awarded this incredible award, all of whom were very humble in accepting theirs!

Nicola Furbisher