Girls for Girls Community Events

The trigger

In 2019, I closed off my four-year journey with a youth-advocacy organisation called AIESEC. My AIESEC journey had me working directly with youth leaders worldwide, creating grass-roots advocacy projects. The organisation existed in over 125 countries and territories and had over 40,000 members, yet was entirely run by 20-year-olds! Since 1948, new youth leaders would take up the reigns every year. The programs were intended to prepare us to be effective, globally-minded leaders. However, I had a harsh reality check entering the corporate world. For years, many AIESEC Alumni told me I would never meet people as passionate or hard-working as those I met in AIESEC. They never told me about the specific gendered issues I would experience as a young woman entering the “adult working world”.

At 21 in AIESEC, I was trusted to build out entire teams and ensure the entities’ long-term financial and legal sustainability in different global locations. I did all of this without noticing my age or prior experience. I simply read the books by global leaders, replicated their processes and watched their tried and proven approach grow our business. After creating record-breaking sales growth in AIESEC Bangladesh, I returned to Australia. To my surprise, I was advised that my global not-for-profit experience was irrelevant to the corporate world.

I accepted that while I had some wins I could be proud of in AIESEC, I had to re-invent myself to “fit in” to the Australian corporate world.

This was when the steady flows of indignities started to build. From recommendations to “not smile too much” to advice that I should “use my looks to get a foot in the door”, I realised the Australian workplaces are still archaically gendered.

Community building for girls in their 20s

Being described as a “girl” is often considered an insult, something to be ashamed of. I didn’t realise why that was harmful until I joined the Australian corporate environment. Girliness is a trait inherent in my personality and feminine friends. It’s a trait that brings joy and a sense of self; why should we continue to change ourselves when we can instead create new spaces to thrive?

That’s why in January 2020, I hosted my first Girls for Girls (G4G) community event. I wanted to create space and community for women in their 20s to be unapologetically girly, ambitious and loud about life intentions without fear of being labelled naive by men and our elder women peers.

Events included:

Unpacking what matters to girls in their 20s
Taking action towards personal goals
What does “wellbeing” mean for girls in their 20s: unpacking “taboo” health topics
Defining a purposeful career: how “ikigai” can guide your life thinking
Money stories: the relationships young women have with money and how we can build financial independence
Courageous You: a poetry event to unpack the meaning of girl and womxnhood in modern society

Lessons from G4G

In the year I ran G4G, I delivered six events, worked on my first ever WordPress website and learnt about the legal processes of setting up a not-for-profit in Australia.

Multiple extended lockdowns gave me time to reflect on what I enjoy and what I don’t. I should have learnt this lesson after four years of delivering events for AIESEC, but I hate running events! I love writing and creating workshops for young women, I love the content creation side of building communities. However, I detest the simple logistics for no particular reason other than I don’t feel a sense of growth or excitement in doing it.

So, I told my community I was done running events and moved on to finding my next project!