When we were asked why we wanted to set up an advisory board of young women of colour, we replied with: ‘why tf not?!’ *insert cute smiley*
In all realness, we don’t see enough women of colour represented in most sectors. For us, when we started this journey of GirlDreamer, it was to inspire women to turn up and take up positions and seats that they never even thought was possible or in fact, for them! Now, we are nearly 4 years into our journey and no, we’re not a huge global organisation right now however, we do want to start now, where we are and with what we have. If we want to see more representation, let’s start with us at GirlDreamer creating the space for it!
With the A-M-A-Z-I-NG support of The National Lottery Community Fund, we are able to put together an advisory board of 10 women of colour every 6 months for 2 years, which means we will have 40 women of colour in the UK who will now have board experience and hopefully feel inspired to pursue their learnings in a wider capacity upon completing our programme. Each cohort of women will essentially be shaping the way we think at GirlDreamer about our interactions, programmes and how we engage with our community. They are the community of #GirlDreamer’s we serve and we now welcome them into our organisation offering them our experiences and resources in return for their creativity and community knowledge. Each member comes to GirlDreamer from a different background and each have a different reason of why they wish to be involved in this programme and what they hope to bring!
The amazing photos below shows all of our advisory board members together on International Women’s Day 2020 where we surprised them with little gifts of appreciation along with a note that prompted them to pop a confetti-filled balloon over the person next to them whilst wishing them something positive for 2020.
Our Advisory Board Members are (in no particular order):
Advisory Board Chair:
- Roshni Natali
Advisory Board Members:
- Arub Syed
- Faatimah Rokib
- Kadie Glenn
- Kavita Purohit
- Milga Abraham
- Nina Ma
- Sanna Ali
- Sheetal Mistry
- Zara Bokhari
Watch this space for updates and what creative greatness our G.A.B comes up with!