Inspiring Women is inspiring primary school children as far afield as Mexico.
Modelled on the UK campaign, Human Rights Awareness ran their own Inspiring Women event bringing together a range of successful women to talk to over 100 children aged 8-12. The event took place at of Colegio Nueva Laguna school, a school in the city of Torreón Coahuila in the North of Mexico.
Taking the popular format of “what’s my line” the children quizzed a panel of volunteers with questions to try and determine what they do. At the event, an array of successful women took part including a Human Rights Activist and an Engineer. After this the Inspiring Women volunteers visited the children in their classrooms to talk about their different jobs.
The Inspiring Women campaign wants to help young women from all background to broaden their horizons and raise aspirations, with particular focus on breaking gender stereotypes at a younger age. The need this was shown in Education and Employers (the charity behind Inspiring Women) Drawing the Future survey, which asked primary school children aged 7-11 to draw a picture of the job they want to do when they grow up and launches this Friday. Over 13,000 children have taken part in the United Kingdom and over 7,000 children have taken part internationally, including the children who attended the Mexico event.
Inspiring women volunteers:
- Chef – Martha Alicia Zúñiga
- Firewoman – Joselyn Cisneros
- Human Rights Activist – Olga Almanza
- Referee (soccer) – Alejandra Benavente
- Architect – Sandra Ruiz
- Engineer – Liza Monsterrat Rodríguez
Mexico ranks 83rd out of 135 countries in the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report of 2013 (World Economic Forum) and the employment rate of women in Mexico is 45.1% – 14.3 percentage points lower than the average of the OECD countries (OECD). However, there are noticeable improvements such as the fact 36% of scientists that are part of the National System of Researchers are women. In the last 20 years the participation of women in the system multiplied by almost 11 times.
The event organizer Connie Fuentes Garrido, founder of Human Rights Awareness and Lawyer spent some time support the Inspiring Women campaign whilst living in the UK. We are delighted to see that she has now used a similar format in Mexico.
Thank you to all of the inspiring women for taking part and to the school and Connie for hosting a fantastic event.