As we celebrate International Women’s Day with this year’s theme of accelerating gender equity through action some of us are watching with dismay the dismantling of decades of EDI legislation, policies and programmes.
Before the black ink dries on the White House paper, the sweeping actions of one of Britain’s closest political allies is further compounded by swathes of multinational companies following suit. Without what appears to be much of a backward glance, their response, appears to be like the migration of a groups of lemmings which as we know can lead to lethal outcomes for some.
However, we should not let the deeply misguided actions of yes powerful men, derail our ambitions, aspirations, strategies and actions as women. We know despite how hard it becomes that equity will ultimately prevail.
It has always been a professional interest of mine to explore how we might ensure that there is not only a legacy of work being led by women today; that legacy will be even more potent through collaborating with the next generation of female leaders. Passing of the baton is what we need to see. As I celebrate a very significant earth day this month, I am reminded of the need to accelerate this area of action so that that younger women can step into my and other elder women’s leadership shoes.
My exploration started back in 2012 during my Churchill Fellowship; I found a community leadership gap between the generations. The Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) in their 2023 state of the sector research found that the majority of CEO’s in the charity and social enterprise sector are White men with an average age of 53. In my final Churchill report I recommended amongst other ideas the need to create a model for intergenerational leadership. We have been developing this area of practice in Ubele in several ways, for example through our Emerging Leaders initiative; leaders across the generations are invited to participate in our community focused projects and programmes (the vast majority of our Erasmus+ programmes consisted of intergenerational leaders) as well as how we work together within the Ubele team. There is much to distil and learn from all we are doing as some of it is not necessarily planned interventions or conscious behaviours.
Over the past two years I have deepened my understanding of intergenerational leadership through additional Churchill support from their The Activate Fund. This fairly recent opportunity encourages a Fellow to explore some of their original findings and recommendations and so….Canerow – Weaving intergenerational Leadership was born…
The new funding provided me with space to reflect, articulate, capture and publish key lessons and insights from my own leadership journey, those of other elder leaders and our emerging leaders from across the wider Ubele community. The idea is that the synthesis of this material should help me develop a model of intergenerational community leadership which could influence future leadership development thinking, learning and practice. This is very much an emerging journey and some of the outcomes will be shared with you over the next year. So far, we have completed a Canerow Retreat for 12 Black Women, 15 intergenerational interviews, the first four of which will be published during International Women’s Month.
I have been supported on this endearing journey by a fantastic team: Yvonne Christie, Macey Mullen, Peggy Warren (PhD), who have jumped on board and wrapped their loving arms around me to co-design and co-deliver the retreat programme and to create a 5-week programme which reflects some of the outcomes of the retreat – I will share more about what we have been up to in this intergenerational space over the coming months.
Peggy Warren bravely stepped into uncharted territories by agreeing to try and capture some of my life’s story in the form of a beautifully illustrated book. It is now in the hands of Tinuke Fagborun, a young talented illustrator, and will be completed by early Spring 2025.
Lastly, I was interviewed for a podcast with Nicole Crentsil, Founder of Black Girl Fest which was launched on International Women’s Day. Co-ordinated by Elsie Cullen of Our Ppls, the whole experience of being held by a team of four amazing new generation of Black female leaders was a profound moment for me. I shed a tear and smudged my studio make-up! I witnessed their brilliance, playfulness and sheer determination to make transformational change in our society; as young Black female entrepreneurs, they are determined in their quest to achieve gender and racial equity.
I was invited to give the keynote speech at the ACEVO’s Fest 2025 in London earlier this week, and as a high talker, I slightly ran out of time. I had planned to give a shout out to a new generation of women who I have had the pleasure to meet primarily over the past five years: amongst the chaos and devastation, some beautiful things happened during the pandemic. I give thanks to these brave social and racial justice young warrior women, most who came into my life during one of my most difficult periods.
They include including Georgina Wilson (Bud Leaders); Paulette Williams (Leading Routes); Asha Mohammed (Nation of Migration Awakening the Diaspora - NOMAD); Amahra Spence (Maia, Yard and Abuelos); Candice James (Max Roach Centre); Immy Kaur (Civic Square); Farzana Khan (Healing Justice); Erel Onojobi (Runnymede Trust); Tracy Ageyman (Equally Yours) to name but a few.
I feel a deep sense of joy as I observe these and an increasing number of phenomenal young women using their heads, hearts and hands to transform our communities; they are not waiting for equity; they are taking action to achieve it for themselves and their communities right now.
My work on intergenerational female leadership has been supported by The Churchill Fellowship, Lankelly Chase and Thirty Percy.
