International Women's Day

International Women's Day (IWD) was first celebrated in 1911 as a day to recognise women's achievements and highlight the continued struggle for equal rights.

As the birthplace of women's suffrage in the UK, Manchester has always been at the centre of the women's movement and Manchester City Council (MCC) has been celebrating International Women's Day for over 25 years.
 
International Women's Day is the perfect event to tap into the hidden talents of women in the city and develop pathways for those talents to be developed. International Women's Day provides an opportunity for Manchester to make positive steps to address inequality, 2012 looked at the under representation of women across a range of industries.

This years International Women's Day event on Sunday 4th March was a fantastic celebration of women's achievements and an opportunity for women to develop new skills, network and access information about opportunities in the city.  The day was a great success thanks to the time and talent of a number of women that supported the day by hosting stalls, delivering workshops and sharing their skills and stories of success. 
 
Councillor Suzanne Richards (lead equality member for women's issues at Manchester City Council) brought together representatives from a number of organisations from across the city to form a steering group for 2012.
 
The steering group was responsible for accessing sponsorship for the event, networking with organisations to be involved in the event and planning, they also developed the theme for 2012 'Inspiring Futures' based on the aspirations for the event, linked to the United Nations Global theme 'Connecting Girls Inspiring Futures'.  The steering group developed five broad aims for the Inspiring Futures event, these were as follows:

1. To focus on the development of skills, education, training and employment support

This year there was a wide range of skill developing activities for people to try along with advice from successful women across a range of industries and support from education, training and employment organisations in the city. This year's International Women's Day programme is available to down load at the bottom of this page. 

2. To increase the number of attendees

At this years event approximately 370 people registered, however a number of people did not register, it is estimated that over 500 people attended.  More people attended than last year.

3. To appeal to young women

More young women attended this year's event than previous years and many had not attended IWD before. It was great and exciting to see more young women at this years event ad we will be exploring how we can build on this next year by linking in with schools.  

4. To access sponsorship

This year the steering group managed to secure £5500 in sponsorship (not including contributions in kind) to deliver the event.  A full list of sponsors is detailed in the programme.

5. To increase publicity

There was more publicity this year than in previous years including activity on social networking sites such as twitter and facebook.  Below is a list of some of the local and regional publicity, information was also sent out to a huge list of organisations across the city, in all wards and electronically to partners.   

• Manchester Evening News
• South Manchester Reporter
• North and East Manchester Advertiser
• BBC Web
• BBC Radio Manchester
• Wythenshawe and All FM
• BBC Radio Liverpool

Unconventional Women
 
On the day an album of female musicians was recorded and produced by the Un-Convention Factory as part of the Unconventional Women activities in the Great Hall.  This album is now available to download for free on the sound cloud link below.

For more information please contact:
Alex Keelan on a.keelan@manchester.gov.uk or please telephone 0161 234 4263.  

Listen to an album produced by female musicians at our International Women's Day event