Vital Voices Global Mentoring Walks highlight the Importance of Women’s Leadership

This International Women’s Day, more than 2000 women will participate for the Global Mentoring Walks 2018 in India from March 8-10. The Walks are being organized by Vital Voices fellows across India and SheThePeople is a proud partner.

Global Mentoring Walk

The Global Mentoring Walk is an opportunity to highlight the importance of women’s leadership, and to accelerate the impact of women leaders through mentoring. The annual Mentoring Walk brings together established women leaders and emerging women leaders to walk together in their community. As they walk, they discuss their professional challenges and successes and establish a mentoring relationship in which the seasoned leader guides, advises and supports her peer.

The overall goal of this Global Mentoring Walk is to value women’s participation in society, to recognize the importance of “paying it forward” by giving back to others in the community.

The concept for this Global Mentoring Walk is derived from American media icon, founder and former CEO of Oxygen Media, Geraldine Laybourne, who launched mentoring walks to empower young women professionals in New York City and across the United States.

Each year, dedicated members of the Vital Voices Global Leadership Network invest in the next generation of women leaders by organizing local mentoring walks. Sarika Bhattacharyya, CEO, BD Foundation and an alumnus of Vital Voices Network volunteered her organization to be the flag bearer for India this year.

"The Global Mentoring walk is a movement to promote women mentoring women. It is true that shared power expands. With more than 150 walks across the globe, women, male champions and young girls join hands together to inspire, support and encourage each other" says Bhattacharyya.

“A mentoring walk is a great opportunity to spend some enriching one on one time with role models. The brief but intense interaction is a unique way to get a powerful dose of advice which can have long term benefits" says Apurva Purohit, President, Jagran Group, who has previously participated in such an effort.

 Gurgaon edition

For the Gurgaon edition, the mentees are girls from Protsahan India Foundation, a non-profit organisation working against child abuse with a focus on adolescent girls in the underserved communities of India.

senior women leaders as mentors mentoring young girls from @NGOProtsahan at #Globalmentoringwalk #pressforprogress pic.twitter.com/2byjy2SK2c

— Sarika Bhattacharyya (@sarikabhattach) February 28, 2018

Through ‘Creative Education’ and 'Skill Development', Protsahan actively works to heal and transform broken childhoods. These girls will be paired with established women leaders to serve as mentors, offering career advice, support, and guidance.

Other cities will see women from corporates, social enterprises and beneficiaries from various non profits engage in discussions regarding their challenges and successes to establish a mentoring relationship with various role models and hence demonstrate the power of women coming together to shape the future of their communities.

“The benefits of women’s mentorship are numerous. It establishes camaraderie, creates gender-friendly environments, promotes a stronger environment for women’s success, and expands horizons for further personal growth as you explore innovative leadership strategies” adds Sarika as to why we need women mentors. Globally, more than 100 organizations will be coming together to organize more than 150 walks in over 60 countries.

Walks are being organised by fellows across Gurgaon, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Guwahati, Noida, Lucknow, Ranchi, Kolkata and Mumbai.

Also Read: The Vital Voices Mentoring Walk empowers young women to think out of the box