By Global Goal
The world marked the International Women’s Day in 2022,
which Global Goal created an
illustration inspired by women leaders from around the world.
In 2021, they partnered with Vital Voices on the
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls where Google.org committed $25
million to fund 34 organizations creating pathways to prosperity for women and
girls.
Their partnership with
Google.org was based on shared belief that solving big problems, such as Gender
Inequality, requires collective action, and the people closest to the
challenges are often those closest to the solution.
Here are some of the Goal 5 Champions who
received funding- they are on the frontlines implementing innovative ideas that
are dedicated to helping women and girls to reach their full economic
potential.
First they had
Olga Patricia Paz Martinez who is Project Director Asociación Colnodo. Rural
women throughout Latin America and the Caribbean have the least access to
information and communication technologies. Olga knows that access to
technology is crucial to women’s economic empowerment and through her work is
seeking to reduce the gender digital divide. Through connectivity and
information communication technology, Asociación Colnodo seeks to expand
education, employment, social and economic opportunities that empower people
and improve the quality of life. They will bring internet access to 1,200 women
and their families through 8 community networks in disconnected rural areas in
Colombia.
Kebone Moloko is
the Founder of the Q Networq and she knows first hand how much representation
matters. Kebone is on a mission to create a society where African Queer womxn,
trans, and non-binary entrepreneurs have access to equitable business opportunities
and access to finance catered to the LGBTQ+ community.
The Q Network is a
community of 1,000+ entrepreneurs and professionals in South Africa that aims
to build a supportive ecosystem of queer womxn entrepreneurs, investors and
working professionals to help each other thrive.
Did you know that
Japan ranks 19th on the Gender Inequality Index, making it one of the most
inequitable places to be a woman in the workplace?
Asumi Saito and Sayaka
Tanaka, the co-founders of Waffle, are on a mission to change that! Their
organization Waffle is Japan’s only charitable organization educating middle
school and high school young women about STEM through leadership programs and
career lectures.
Their Young Women in Tech Leadership Programme will make
programming accessible to women outside of computer science majors via
campus-based workshops and develop a women’s tech conference to build community
and expose women in tech to role models.
Marlene Slemberger
is Director of Women’s Entrepreneurship and Leadership at the University of
Montana. As an indienous woman, she believes that women are the backbone to
uplifting communities and is focused on furthering this strength with formal
training, skills and education.
She is one of the creators of ‘Native Women
Launch’ a collaboration between a pair of tribal colleges (the Salish Kootenai
College and the Blackfeet Community College) and the University of Montana that
aims to support Indigenous women in the state who are interested in starting or
growing their businesses.
It provides relevant and tribally diverse online
courses focused on business ownership and personal finance featuring case
studies of Montana native women.
Our final
inspirational leader is Emmanuelle Larroque, CEO of Social Builder in France.
She believes that the world needs a renewed leadership that promotes the
reduction of inequalities and that women must participate in this paradigm
shift. Addressing the digital gender divide is critical to achieve this and SDG
5 and is why Emmanuelle is building women-centered solutions to create systemic
change in tech.
In the last 10 years, her organization Social Builder has
supported over 55,000 women by designing and deploying innovative and scalable
solutions that empower women to thrive in the digital economy. One solution in
particular is the “Social Builder Academy” that is an app that allows users to
customize content to support their transition to the digital sector.
To read more about
these organizations as well as 29 more inspirational projects visit the
Google.org Impact Challenge page here.
Initiatives such as the Impact Challenge are crucial to accelerating world
progress because Goal 5; Gender Equality, sits at the heart of achieving all 17
of the Global Goals. Only by harnessing the potential of all women and girls,
will we be able to recover equitably from the pandemic and create a better
world for everyone by 2030.
Source: www.globalgoals.org
