Driving Change in a Challenging World

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Since 2013, I’ve partnered with Women2Women International to help their global delegates unlock their superpowers, build social capital, tap into their entrepreneurial spirit, and develop action plans to bring positive change to their home communities. It’s undoubtedly one of my favorite programs, and each summer I look forward to meeting these powerhouse 15 to 19 year-old leaders.

Many of the participants have already experienced overwhelming challenges in their short lives, such as the need to flee their countries, battles with body dysmorphia, and threats of violence.  And yet, each of these young women showed up with excitement, optimism, and a desire to connect with new people, skills, and mindsets to accomplish their goals. Their action plans – developed after just 10 days of learning in Boston – were focused on addressing some of the critical issues affecting women and girls, such as mental health, sexual violence, gender equity in politics, and access to education.

To say that these young women are impressive is an understatement.

I was blown away by the quality of their presentations, their curiosity, desire to learn, and their drive to create impact in the face of overwhelming obstacles. These aren’t just a bunch of wide-eyed teenagers who don’t know any better. These are young women who have already felt the weight of the world are actively choosing to find new pathways for change.

Women and girls face countless issues across the globe, and the obstacles seem to be getting bigger every day. Tragically, programs like Women2Women are coming under fire just for existing, and many political figures want to see the program eliminated.

The small, but mighty team from Empower Peace have been running Women2Women for nearly 20 years and, in addition to their flagship Boston program, they’ve brought their unique offerings to dozens of countries, including Bahrain, Belgium, Egypt, Jordan, India, and Pakistan. This team knows a thing or two about being adaptable and preparing for the unexpected, and they are masters at pivoting in the face of obstacles. But this year was unlike any other and, for the first time, there were questions about how they’d pull off the program.

Like many nonprofits, Empower Peace’s business model was upended when the new administration entered the White House. All of their longstanding partnership with US Embassies – under both Republican and Democratic administrations – were severed overnight, making it harder to reach potential applicants for the program. Girls from certain countries are no longer allowed to enter the US due to travel bans, and even those who are technically “allowed” face visa restrictions or challenges that make traveling to Boston untenable. Empower Peace was asked to return federal funding for programs they already had in progress, and suddenly, the US envoys were leaving girls without advocates to help them access global leadership opportunities like this one.

This could have been the moment that the team curled up in a ball and decided to shut down, but after dedicating 19+ years to uplifting girls everywhere, that was the last thing any of them would do. Instead, they jumped headfirst into unchartered territory and began thinking creatively about ways to keep the program going in 2025. They used an entrepreneurial mindset and started focusing on their skills and competencies, their networks, and the resources they had at hand to approach their challenges differently in service to their goal – empowering the next generation of female leaders.

They forged relationships with new partners, leveraged their vast network to promote their work to potential funders, and were extremely vocal about the importance of uplifting young women to anyone who would listen. They ran social media ads in different regions, leading to an influx of applications from countries like Kazakhstan. They worked around some visa restrictions by finding young women who were already in the US on educational scholarships, minimizing issues with customs and immigration. Most importantly, they accepted the fact that things were going to be different this year and allowed themselves to adapt accordingly.

Women2Women would typically attract about 100 delegates from more than two dozen countries, but this year, there were 48 young women from 14 countries. While the size of the group may have been diminished, the impact and value were anything but minimal. Some of the alumnae who came back to help run the program remarked that this group felt more cohesive and engaged with one another, and that the smaller group size led to more robust connections between girls who wouldn’t have met otherwise.

In a time when many of us can feel helpless or unsure of how to take our next steps, Women2Women shows that anything is possible when you empower a young woman and allow her to lead. And it’s a great reminder that each of us has the power to tap into our entrepreneurial spirit to build our ideas, programs, and organizations, even when the odds are stacked against us.