Bringing Inspiring Girls to Aragón

The launch was held at the Walqa Technologic Park at the Espacio 0.42 venue, a magnificent planetarium and an apt backdrop for girls who want to reach for the stars! We had inspiring women from the government, public and private sectors as well as entrepreneurs presenting their personal stories. We thank Marta Gastón, Director General of Finance, Industry and Work for Aragón; Soledad de la Puente Sánchez, Director of Labour for Aragón; Cristina de la Hera, General Director of Walqa Technology Park; Blanca Liso, star presenter at AragónTV and Patricia Heredia, founder of MiniVinci.

30 girls between the ages of 10 and 16 had the opportunity to attend 3 workshops, focused on introducing them to technical subjects: robotics by MiniVinci, arduino made-easy by IriusRisk and launching model rockets by Espacio 0.42. A highlight was Román Magrazo and Blanca Liso presenting their 12 minute film written and produced in Huesca for Inspiring Girls, with an empowering message for the girls. The day wasn’t only educational but we all had so much fun too!

”Inspiring Girls International is an organisation dedicated to raising the aspirations of young girls around the world by connecting girls and female role models. Gender stereotypes are, regretfully, still a reality in our society. They are constraining the aspirations of young girls all over the world, limiting their choices since a very early age.

Moreover, residual sexism still applies to women and girls of all ages. They are subject to labels at the work place and in society. While this might be just background noise for women of a certain age, it is the background noise against which girls are being brought up. It therefore limits their dreams and aspirations. Recent surveys in the UK show that by the age of 6 years old, children start looking at jobs as female and male and by 13 they have already discarded some jobs based in gender stereotypes. The situation in many other countries (both developed and developing ones) is very similar. While Governments in every country need to continue being encouraged to take further actions to contribute to change the situation above, we believe that the real change will come from society itself, both men and women, willing to speak up and lead by example through initiatives such as Inspiring Girls International.” (www.inspiring-girls.com)

Inspiring Girls will have many more events this year all over Spain, starting with Barcelona and Malaga in September, and we look forward to seeing this initiative in many more countries very soon. Let’s change the world and the statistics, bit by bit, together!