Carleton’s Centre for Research and Education on Women and Work (CREWW) announced a new collaboration to make their annual conference—the Advancing Women Leaders Program (AWLP)—more accessible to Indigenous women in Canada, Chile, Argentina and Mexico over the next five years.
This CREWW partnered with GoldCorp Inc., a gold production company based in British Columbia.
The AWLP first launched in 2014 and has since become a yearly event that aims to provide young women with leadership skills and business knowledge to navigate traditionally male-led organizations.
Merridee Bujaki, CREWW’s former director and a Carleton business professor, said the AWLP has always focused on young women focusing at least a decade or mid-way into their careers.
“They’re starting to realize they’re not progressing at the same rate their male colleagues are,” she said. “Unfortunately, or fortunately, many of the young women don’t yet realize that they’re likely to encounter any challenges.”
Bujaki said a high number of young women enrolled in university classes find a large spirit of female empowerment on campus but as they begin their careers, a lack of female role models in leadership roles hinders their progress.
Clare Beckton, CREWW’s executive in residence, said she agreed with Bujaki.
“We hear this quite often with the women who come into our program,” Beckton said. “We want to shift them around and say that the opportunity is there for you to be the role model you want to see.”
Beckton said AWLP’s main focus is less on teaching leadership skills and more on highlighting the importance of these skills in order for women to advance.
“You don’t empower other people, they empower themselves,” she said. “We give them the tools to be more empowered, and to feel that degree of confidence.”
She added many of women who graduated from the program leave with the confidence and skills needed to not only focus on themselves, but to bring to their workplace as well.
This year, GoldCorp Inc. also funded four Indigenous women to participate in the program—a part of their initiative to include more diversity in the field of business.
Bujaki said the funding helped the program grow much more this year.
“I think it has enriched the experience for everybody that’s here in the room, not just the women themselves who are here on these scholarships,” she said.
According to their website, the AWLP costs $6,780 per participant, with groups rates and other details available through CREWW.
CREWW hopes to continue to see an increase of women from all different backgrounds participate in the program.
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