One way to hang out with leaders. Tom Flanigan reports more than a hundred young women were doing exactly that this past Friday (January 18, 2013) in Tallahassee.
FSU’s Turnbull Center was the site of the first Girls Leadership Network Summit. Chiles High School Senior Hanna Karimpour actually started the Girls Leadership Network herself and was a major event organizer.
“Today we have high school girls and then we have some college women and women in the community. So the high school girls are participating in leadership and activism training and how to communicate their vision, how to build themselves and how to build a project and whatever they’re interested in. And then the women are in a mentoring track; how to foster a mentoring relationship, how to build the circumstances so they’ll be a good mentor.”
Another Chiles Senior Caitlin Swetowsky already had a mentor she’s been working with.
“Julie Lovelace, my Youth Leadership Tallahassee supervisor, has been an immense resource as far as networking goes. She’s the one I can go to as a complete mentor for any advice and she really knows how to go community-wide with any ideas you want to bring.”
Maclay High School Senior Gabriella Brown would like to pursue an international business career someday. She enjoyed the chance to meet so many new people at the Summit.
“Just different things to help bring people together, because I feel that a lot of people realize, ‘At first maybe I’m alone doing this, no one’s really supporting me,’ but it’s really interesting to see all these peoples’ different interests and how they really want to pursue it and get feedback from other women.”
There were also about a hundred adult women at the Girls Leadership Network Summit. They included many local and state government leaders, business executives and non-profit organization heads. Among those mentors was Tallahassee Communications Professional Pat Smith who brought one of her young protéges
“My mentee, she’s a little shy and I think by having her attend this type of event she’s learning leadership skills, there are great resources how she can continue to tap into some scholarships in the future and advance her life and career.”
Summit coordinator Hanna Karimpour said there were several chances for mentees to connect with more mentors, including a “speed networking” event.
“Which basically you go and say things about yourself and your little ‘elevator speech’ and get to interact with different women in the community.”
Karimpour hopes the first Girls Leadership Network Summit will just be the start of many similar occasions.
“I had originally envisioned the Girls Leadership Network to be an ongoing project – maybe a monthly event – and that’s something we’re going to talk about later in the day about what we see the Girls Leadership Network as. Because we’ve seen a lot of interest in this, so there seems to be a clear need for this so we definitely want to continue this and have the women and girls involved and continue to be involved.”
Making the Summit possible, the ANNpower Vital Voices Initiative and F-S-U School of Social Work. Other partners were the Oasis Center for Women and Girls, Leon County Commission on the Status of Women and Girls, Youth Leadership Tallahassee, the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Florida Department of Children and Families.