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To mark this year’s International Women’s Day, Â鶹´«Ã½, Leicester (Â鶹´«Ã½) united with its global partners in a first of its kind event to celebrate women in education around the world.

Described as putting the “international into International Women’s Day” the live link-up event was hosted by Â鶹´«Ã½ in collaboration with its Transnational Education (TNE) partners Asia Pacific University (APU) in Malaysia, Â鶹´«Ã½ Kazakhstan and Â鶹´«Ã½ Dubai, UAE.

Chaired by Â鶹´«Ã½’s Associate Dean International, Dr Manjeet Ridon and Pro Vice-Chancellor Sustainability, Professor Simon Oldroyd, the event highlighted women in higher education at the forefront of driving educational efforts that embrace equality for future generations.

Opening proceedings, Dr Ridon said: “It’s such an honour to have so many amazing women speakers joining us today, to share with us their inspirational journey. Today we are aiming to highlight the importance of gender equality, and share our perspectives across the world as each of us find them.

“Education is a clear way to help drive forward and support the United Nations (UN) agenda for gender equality.

“Here at Â鶹´«Ã½, we are really interested in education for sustainable development and it is a key part of our Empowering University strategy. We believe through this kind of education we can really empower our students to be change makers.

“When we advocate this type of education and work together with universities overseas, we can really make this change happen, by sharing stories and creating new ways of thinking. This is why today’s event is so important, it’s a really good first step on how we can address this.”

Additionally, Professor Simon Oldroyd welcomed global partners by saying: “I can’t imagine there are many other events going on today that really put the international into International Women’s Day in the way we are doing, five countries, four time zones, it’s fantastic and really exciting for us all to be part of.”

Before hearing from each campus, United Nations (UN) keynote speaker and Peace Advocate, Dorothy Akende set the scene with a powerful speech outlining where we are now in terms of gender equality and most importantly the work that still needs to be done.

Her message highlighted the importance of education to women and girls, not just the obvious things like teaching and learning, but the effect education can have on safety, mental health and empowerment; important aspects of education that are often overlooked.

With a mixture of speeches, presentations, videos and personal anecdotes from keynote speakers, lecturers and female academics the event created a first of its kind insight into empowering women around the world, highlighting the important role universities can play in the education of women and girls, and delivering progress on UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality. 

Partners from APU Malaysia, gave an insightful presentation on the future of work and how technology is changing the landscape for gender equality, along with an insight into some of their initiatives.

Dr Meera Eeswaran, Senior Lecturer of Accounting and Finance at APU said during her speech: “Through our efforts here at APU we want all our female staff and students to have opportunities, we want to create a platform, especially for our students, to be bold, strong, assertive and assure they can take these attributes into the working world.

“As a woman I want to help inspire students and help guide them into their careers as a strong woman.”

Next to chair discussions was Sakina Zafar, Managing Director from Â鶹´«Ã½ Kazakhstan, who shared an empowering video celebrating women as leaders as a tool to inspire others.

Finally, there was an insight from Â鶹´«Ã½ Dubai, including a speech from Ayesha Khan from Food-ATM, a social enterprise aimed at ensuring food security for construction workers in the UAE, who summed up the whole event in one powerful line about students who were influenced by her work: “I am studying because of you.”