Doris Amankwaah from Fawcett, the UKs leading charity who campaign for gender equality, spoke at the Gumley High School conference on Tuesday February 21, about women’s rights. 

Amankwaah, who has been with Fawcett for just over a year and is passionate about the cause, said: "We find it important that we include the voices of young people in the gender equality discourse so that the issues we campaign for are a true representation of society.”

The presentation was organised by seven Gumley sixth formers who had attended the WOW conference in October and were aiming to engage with younger students in the school. 

They chose the topic ‘Misrepresentation of Women in the Media’ and planned the event as part of their learning and development skills.

Catriona Cheek, one of the sixth form students involved, said: “We really enjoyed sharing our experience of the Women of the World conference with the younger year groups and were very pleased that they were so enthusiastic!

“We hope that the mini-conference has encouraged them to get involved with the WOW festival this year and attend the Young Women’s Rally that we are organising as part of WOW London in March.”

Fawcett’s vision is ‘to create a society in which the choices you can make and the control you have over your life are no longer determined by your gender’, which was demonstrated well by the students organising the day.  There was a question and answer session at the end of the presentation and it was clear that the students were enthusiastic on the subject and not afraid to speak out.