Support Young Women Changing the Status Quo

This past August saw a series of announcements from G(irls)20 including a name change to Fora.

Why change their name? Fora shared with its stakeholders and the public the following:

"Over the past two years, we have seen a seismic shift across the world, and we have heard calls from our community, rightly demanding more from the gender equality movement. As we developed our new strategic plan, we consulted our program participants, partners, staff, board of directors, and our broader community, and the feedback helped us focus our new strategic plan on two core areas: impact and growth. This strategy better supports our community, our wider mission, and our founding principles.

What emerged through the strategic planning process was a natural shift in the presentation of the organization. With this, G(irls)20 has evolved with a new name. Fora is the plural of Forum and is defined as a meeting place of ideas. The key strength of our organization has always been our summits where lived experience, knowledge, and mentorship created a learning network by and for young women leaders. We feel the new name is a great fit for our work while also allowing us space to grow and evolve.

Fora's programs and operations will continue to be participant-informed, using an intersectional lens that especially considers the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and racialized community members, the different lived experiences of youth around the world, and the diversity of genders."

The YouTube link provided with this update is the official announcement from Fora's CEO.

What remains the same is their mission and vision of “a world in which young women are able to participate fully in the economic growth, political stability and social innovations of their countries.”

Starting in 2022, as part of the new strategy, the Global Summit will no longer be aligned directly to the G20 but instead become a standalone, independent Summit hosted annually in Toronto, Canada and with a focus on leadership development, advocacy, and policy-creation training. Delegates will come from across the globe and, with leadership training provided by Fora, be prepared to advocate in local, national, and international decision-making spaces.

Fora has also created two new programs that are being launched this autumn:

1. A Master Class of their signature Girls on Boards, which is an intensive weekend program that will focus on building the technical and essential skills required to join a non-profit governance board.
2. The Next Level program provides young women and gender diverse youth from the retail and hospitality sectors in Canada with leadership and social entrepreneurship training along with supportive coaching to navigate the changing economy on their own terms. Next Level features weekly live, online workshops and bi-weekly coaching. The pilot session starts in November, 2021.

BBS is very excited about the growth of G(irls)20 under their new name and with the addition of their new programs.  All the funds that have been raised through our GlobalGiving dedicated project page will be used as originally stated for the Summit and specifically to support the delegates.

We want to thank our donors for their support and look forward to sharing the 2022 Summit delegate announcements.

Links:

• Fora Announcement by Heather Barnabe, CEO