‘There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women’

On Saturday Ms Taylor and four students, Lucy-Mae, Abigail, Sophia and Mollie-Ruth, attended the International Women’s Day Festival at Blackpool Sixth Form College. Run by The Washington Group, the festival aims to bring together women and girls from across the Fylde Coast to find ways to improve life in their local area. The festival focused on five key areas:

  • Environmental improvements
  • Happiness
  • Women in sport
  • Individuality
  • Innovation

Ms Taylor said: "Our students attended two workshops in the morning, one on innovation in technology and another in performing arts. We had initially signed up to complete a workshop on happiness but were sent to performing arts instead. However, the girls thrived in this workshop, performing a brilliant improvisation task and then, without planning each performed a solo rendition of a chosen song! They all demonstrated incredible bravery and talent and I could not have been more proud to be associated with them. The ladies running the workshops were blown away by them and repeatedly said how wonderful they all were.

"After filling up from the street food vans on site, we then attended the strategy meeting in the afternoon, where we moved through each focus group to discuss what is working well in our local area and to provide ideas for improvements that can be made in the future. By the end of the session, hundreds of suggestions on improvement had been made and will be presented to local community leaders and MPs for consideration, some of whom were in attendance.

The most common theme to run throughout the strategy meeting was safety. Many of the young women in attendance felt that the community is not safe enough for them to enjoy. Suggestions for improvement included better street lighting, a higher police presence and women/girls only running groups. Our own students voiced their concern at how they often feel unsafe walking to and from school in the darker winter months and this feeling was shared by most. In response to this a new online safety ‘street map’ has been created for Blackpool where women can share areas around the Fylde coast where they have been the victim of sexual harassment or assault. The postings are anonymous and are expected to outweigh the number of assaults reported to the Police. It is a sad fact that many women choose not to report these incidents, but hopefully this map will allow local women to take extra steps to keep themselves safe and avoid areas that pose a higher risk of assault or harassment.

You can find the map to report any instances of harassment by clicking here or the icon below and read about the scheme at www.blackpoolsocial.club/32419-rts-mapping-harassment/

Ms Taylor added: "Although some of what we discussed was disturbing, it was an extremely empowering and wonderful day - our students could not have represented Aspire Academy better."

You can see all the photos from the event by clicking here.