From polar exploration to STEM research, this year’s You WIL Summit connected teenage girls worldwide with the women shaping their fields
Nearly 70 teenage girls from Birmingham and seven countries (China, Ghana, Italy, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Ukraine) spent a week hearing from diplomats, professional football players, artists, business leaders and polar explorers as this year’s Young Women into Leadership (You WIL) Summit drew to close.
A programme built on partnership
Now in its sixth year, You WIL is a Birmingham City Council initiative delivered for the second year with the University of Birmingham. The summit ran online from 20th to 27th July, bringing together girls aged 14 to 16 for a week aimed to inspire the next generation of leaders.
Five days, five fields
Each day was thematically focused:
Sessions were chaired by University of Birmingham academics and the European and International Affairs staff and built around panels of trailblazing women working in those fields.
Speakers included: Birmingham City council Managing Director Joanne Roney CBE, British Council equality advisor Doaa Hafez; law firm equity partner Joanna Lee-Mils, Nai Nicole, founder of marketing agency RBRANDR; record-breaking polar explorer Preet Chandi with Birmingham City FC vice-captain Chelsea Cornet and Birmingham Children’s Trust’s Clair Graham; Prof. Lindsay Hall, Chair of Microbiome Research at the University of Birmingham, Dr. Ona Ilozumba, Global Health Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham; and Javina Greene, from Females About Music CIC, actress, producer and writer Louise Osbourne and the concert pianist Di Xiao.
Speakers explained their career journeys including triumphs and challenges to demystify the routes to areas of employment which have not been so accessible to women. Di Xiao told participants “Don’t wait for opportunities to come to you. Go and create them”. Art historian Dr Katrin Seyler put it more simply still: “Rejection is redirection”.
Alongside the thematic content, participants worked in small international teams throughout the week, developing presentations with the support from University of Birmingham mentors. Girls presented these to a panel on the sixth day, this year made up of representatives from Birmingham City Council, the University of Birmingham, British Council and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
A global city, made visible
The summit’s international reach sits at the heart of Birmingham’s wider partner city relationships. This year’s cohort included participants from four of the city’s sister cities: Johannesburg, whose own first-ever international partnership was with Birmingham; Milan; Zaporizhzhia, Birmingham’s Ukrainian partner since 1973; and Changchun, one of two Chinese cities twinned with Birmingham.
Voices from the summit
Cllr Yvonne Mosquito, Birmingham’s former Lord Mayor, has backed the programme since its early years, saying she would have loved to take part in it herself as a 15-year-old. It’s a line that sums up much of what You WIL is trying to do: connecting teenage girls with trailblazing women who have already built the careers they are only beginning to imagine.
Feedback from girls this year and in previous years suggest the experience is impactive.
“Personally, I feel that the YOU WIL summit has definitely made me feel more confident in terms of what I’d like to do in the future, hearing stories of all these women who went into their careers without much support from families but still succeeding anyway truly changed my perspective on my future career.” Expressed one of the participants this year.
“Another thing that I have learned is that you are always allowed to ask for help and advice, and it’s not a bad thing when you can’t do something on your own. I think many young girls find it difficult to do that because they want to seem strong and independent. But the speakers on You WIL showed us that it is okay to ask for help and that it doesn’t make us less successful or less strong.” Said a student from a previous edition.
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