The Power of Our Voice: 25 Years of Inspiration & Impact
A recap of the 2nd Annual Vital Voices Festival in our 25th year of investing in, connecting with and amplifying the work of women leaders globally.
The 2nd Annual Vital Voices Festival featured a number of thought-provoking discussions and activities featuring women leaders in the global movement for gender equality, peace, economic empowerment, sustainability and more, including Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, who cofounded Vital Voices with the late U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright in 1997.
Sec. Clinton spoke on a panel titled, Audacious Action: 25 Years of Disrupting the Status Quo, with Northern Irish Peace Builder, Dr. Bronagh Hinds, Gambian Activist & Advocate for Gender Equality, Oumie Sissokho, Indian Human Rights Activist & Author, Ruchira Gupta, and Guatemalan Social Entrepreneur, Maria Pacheco.
“The most important power remains to cast your vote for those who you believe will protest your rights,” said Sec. Clinton.
The women on the panel represented more than 25 years of Vital Voices history and our global network of women leaders who have been igniting movements for more than a generation.
Vital Voices President and CEO Alyse Nelson kicked off the Festival with a talk on,“Rule Breakers, Trailblazers, Movement Makers: Why It’s Time for Women’s Leadership.”
“I think if we learned anything in these last few years, it is that the change we want to see isn’t promised. Progress isn’t promised. We have to insist on it,” said Nelson.
The discussion featured several of the world’s leading ‘rule breakers,’ who shed light on their innovative work to advance gender equality.
“If we want our societies to change, if we want social justice, if we want inclusion, we cannot count on the people who have built the current status quo to change it. We must embrace power as women. The first thing we have to do as women is get comfortable with power,” said Kah Walla, President of the Cameroon People’s Party, Activist & CEO of STRATEGIES!
Walla was joined by Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, senior advisor for Native American Affairs at The White House, Shirin Musa, founder of Femmes for Freedom, Helena Gualinga, environmental and human rights activist and Laura Alonso, former Secretary of Public Ethics, Transparency & Anti-Corruption Office of Argentina.
Each panelist shared personal stories that led them to Vital Voices and spoke about why now is an urgent time for women leadership.
Marketing Hall of Famer and Vital Voices Board Member Bozoma Saint John, attended the Festival to share insight and advice from her experience being a woman of color, a widow, a single mother and chief marketing executive at some of today’s most celebrated global brands.
“I want to be known for the things I overcame, you know? The traumas that would have taken me down, but yet I persevered anyway,” Saint John, author of the memoir, The Urgent Life.
The conversation was led by Huma Abedin, chief of staff to Sec. Hillary Rodham Clinton, author and Vital Voices Board Member. The discussion gave women leaders facing adversity hope that they, too, can find fulfillment despite seemingly insurmountable challenges.
The arts & entertainment also took center stage as thought leaders from film, TV, fine arts and theater spoke about the power of their industry to advance movements. Panelists included Sesame Workshop’s President, Sherrie Westin, the President of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Deborah Rutter, filmmaker Samar Minallah Khan, and the Executive Director of For Freedoms artist collective, Claudia Peña, who played an integral role in last fall’s Eyes on Iran campaign to remove Iran from the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.
Geraldine Laybourne, Co-Founder of Oxygen Media, former CEO of Nickelodeon and Vice Chair of the Vital Voices Board, served as moderator of the session.
In a timely and sobering discussion about the severe oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan and Iran, three leading advocates in the fight for women’s rights spoke on systemic gender apartheid.
Afghan Women’s Rights Activist Metra Mehran and Iranian Artist & Activist Sepideh Moafi, spoke with Moderator Zainab Salbi—founder of Women for Women International, co-founder of Daughters for Earth, and a Vital Voices Board Member — about the problems, the solutions and everything that must happen in between to have gender equity in the Middle East.
In a surprise reveal at the end of the panel, the Artlords, a grassroots artists collective founded in Kabul, presented a protest piece in honor of Afghan and Iranian women. They started with a blank canvas and completed the artwork on-site during the Festival. The art now sits on display in the Vital Voices’ lobby as a sign of solidarity for Afghan, Iranian, and all oppressed women and girls of the world.
In this highly anticipated conversation shedding light on how all women possess the power to build a movement, Mandana Dayani, creator and co-founder of “I am a voter,” moderated an insightful discussion with Producer, Actress & Activist, Debra Messing, and Moms Demand Action Founder, Shannon Watts, about why civic engagement is key to gaining momentum as a movement builder.
“I think cynicism is kind of a laziness for inaction. If we give people that excuse, they won’t get involved,” said Debra Messing.
The three women leaders shared insight from their work on two of the most challenging issues in the United States right now: gun control and voting rights.
Four extraordinary women who are navigating climate solutions joined the World Wildlife Fund’s Ombudsperson, Gina Barbieri, for a discussion on how we can all build a sustainable future for the next generation.
Inna Braverman, founder and CEO of Eco Wave Power, Alejandra Mora Mora, a lawyer, author, and the Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Women (CIM) at the Organization of American States (OAS), Heather Pinnock, managing director of Lucea Caribbean Limited and a Vital Voices GROW Fellow, and Sophia Kianni, a climate activist and the founder of Climate Cardinals, explained how they got started in the climate justice movement and how anyone can become a sustainability activist.
Our panel on “The Rising Tide of Disinformation and Digital Dictatorship,” offered a cross-cultural analysis on the issue of disinformation with expert commentary from the Honorable Neema Lugangira of Tanzania, Paulina Ibarra of Chile, Neysara of India, and Alena Popova of Russia, who were in conversation with Manira Alva, Vital Voices’ Vice President of Issue Advocacy.
“We need to get social media platforms to be transparent about who is making the decisions, how those decisions are made and about what, otherwise civil society can do nothing,” said Alva, on the topic of artificial intelligence and preventing online gender-based violence.
During the discussion, the panelists explored what is occurring right now in the world of fact and fiction, what they are experiencing from a personal account, solutions, and what we can all do to bring more truth to the surface.
In this discussion, Zainab Salbi sat down with Ambassador Patricia Espinosa, former Executive Secretary at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to speak about the ongoing work that must be done to support women’s rights and the marginalization of indigenous women.
“It is not only that women are disproportionately affected by climate change, they are also the providers of solutions,” said Espinosa.
In her talk, Ambassador Espinosa also advised the audience on how to begin working on climate change.
In this sit-down discussion with Connie K. Lim, a social justice singer/songwriter better known by the stage name, MILCK, spoke about her journey towards courage, strength and finding her voice to speak out about her experience with an abusive partner through music. Her story is chronicled in the new film, I Can’t Keep Quiet.
Joining her on stage was the film’s Executive Producer & Writer, Maile Zambuto, and Director & Producer, Eurie Chung.
During the talk, the three women leaders at the forefront of social change in the arts delved deeply into their love of music and film, sharing what it took to create the incredibly emotional and powerful movie.
Written by the Communications Team at Vital Voices.
Invest in Women. Improve the World.
Vital Voices invests in women leaders solving the world’s greatest challenges. We are “venture catalysts,” identifying those with a bold vision for change and partnering with them to make that vision a reality. We scale and accelerate their impact through longterm investments to expand the skills, connections, capacity, and visibility of women leaders.
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