Women Igniting Change®, a global organization that supports initiatives to improve the lives of women and girls around the world, is attracting national attention. Founder and CEO Robbin Jorgensen will deliver the keynote speech at the 170th Anniversary of the First Women’s Rights Convention. The annual celebration of the Seneca Falls Convention is held at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, New York. Past keynote speakers have included Elizabeth Nyamayaro, global head of the HeForShe movement and senior advisor to under-secretary-general/executive director for UN Women, as well as former first lady Hillary Clinton.
As a purpose-driven organization geared toward unleashing the valuable contributions of women around the world, Women Igniting Change® works with Fortune 500 companies, government leaders, and other organizations to empower their female counterparts and address the pressing global challenges women face.
“In almost every corner of the globe, women still face gender discrimination and sexism,” says Jorgensen. “In the U.S., we’re still raising awareness of unconscious bias, unequal pay, and gender inequality both in and outside of the workplace. In many developing countries, women are fighting for equal access to quality jobs and are challenging cultural norms in order to receive an education.”
In conjunction with Jorgensen’s keynote speech at the anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, Women Igniting Change® is launching a new awareness campaign, We Are the Next Wave. The We Are the Next Wave campaign calls the current generation to action in the continued fight for women’s rights. The first wave of the women’s rights movement are ancestral leaders—organizers, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who coordinated the first Women’s Rights Convention. Women Igniting Change® is imploring modern women to add their unique contribution to the next wave, to further progress and to take a stand for women and girls around the world. Using the hashtag #WeAreTheNextWave, the campaign encourages women to share on social media the ways in which they will engage in the movement, and invites them to complete the phrase “We Are the Next Wave Who…”
“Our goal is to work with women in all 193 U.N. member countries,” says Jorgensen. “We want to unleash the power of women as global change agents and encourage them to be active participants in creating a better world for generations to come.”
The 170th Anniversary of the First Women’s Rights Convention takes place July 20-22, 2018. The three-day event commemorates the United States’ first women’s rights convention, held in 1848, when 300 men and women convened to discuss the “social, civil, and religious condition of women.” The original convention culminated in the signing of the Declaration of Sentiments, a document that was modeled after the Declaration of Independence and inserted the words, “and women” into the proclamation, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [and women] are created equal…”