An image of three women raising their hands together in solidarity. They are dressed in bright colours with the WOW logo emblazoned on their backs.
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WOW Foundation

Join us and Women of the World for WOW Global 24, a free online festival focused on women and girls, racial injustice and the impact of Covid-19 on gender equality.

On Saturday 27 June and Sunday 28 June, international speakers and artists are set to debate and discuss the most pressing global challenges of our times around six themes: Education, Justice, Climate, Health, the Economy and Violence. Just some of the speakers include:

  • Legendary activist Angela Davis, talking about the Black Lives Matter movement;
  • UN Women discussing gender equality in the times of COVID-19;
  • Activist and author of Amazons, Abolitionists and Activists and Hood Feminism, Mikki Kendall; 
  • LGBT and women's rights activist Jayanthi Kuru-Utumpala;
  • Senator Sherry Rehman, Parliamentary Leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in Senate; 
  • Secretary of the UN Framework Convention, Christiana Figueres, talking about climate change;
  • Sudanese writer, women's rights activist and socialist leader Fatima Ibrahim;
  • Actress and activist Gillian Anderson, and many more.

Watch WOW South Asia and WOW Turkey on The Local Channel

The South Asia programme runs for three hours on Saturday 27 June and has been curated by WOW teams in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. Download the South Asia programme for the full lineup, which includes: 

  • A panel discussion on Environment and the Feminist Response (cross-South Asia);
  • Project Women-Way, a creative session with four artists who will create an artwork while discussing how they challenge body stereotypes through their work (cross-South Asia);
  • A WOW Bite with transgender activist and entrepreneur Joyita Poly who will talk about helping the transgender community fight for their rights in Bangladesh;
  • A WOW Bite with Sarah Marandy, indigenous rights activist in Bangladesh, about the situation facing indigenous women and children during Covid-19;
  • A performance and tribute to all women who have been part of WOW by Sareena Rai, Chandresha Pandey and DJ Ranzen.

Later, tune in to WOW Turkey for music, theatre, conversations, film screenings and more, with English subtitles available to all audiences.

Shop from independent brands at WOW Marketplace

Every WOW Festival around the globe has a WOW Marketplace for women-led businesses. For WOW Global 24 the Marketplace will go online for the first time curated by Janet’s List - a platform that markets independent brands by Black women and women of colour from the UK. 

How to watch

Tune in on the WOW Foundation website from 10.30am BST on Saturday 27 June to 10.30 am BST on 28 June. The Global Channel and The Local Channel will be streaming live and simultaneously over 24 hours at the WOW Foundation website. The programme is designed so that when viewers are watching during daylight hours, events will be generated from the audience’s own part of the world.

WOW South Asia runs for three hours at the following times on The Local Channel:
12:00 – 15:00 UK (BST) | 16:00 – 19:00 (PK) | 16:30 – 19:30 (IND/LKA)
16:45 – 19:45 (NPL) | 17:00 – 20:00 (BGL)

WOW Turkey runs for two hours at the following times on The Local Channel:
16:00 – 18:00 UK (BST) | 18:00 – 20:00 (TRT)  

Accessibility

The Global Channel will be BSL interpreted by Performance Interpreting, with live captioning by My Clear Text and Stagetext. The Local Channel will be captioned in English.

About British Council's partnership with Women of the World

Since 2016 the British Council has worked in partnership with UK based organisation, The WOW Foundation to support WOW activity across South Asia (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka). In 2019 activity that we have supported in SA has reached 55,000 women, girls, men and boys in face to face discussions around gender equality. A further 15 million engaged online across the globe. The newest additional to our British Council supported WOW activity is Turkey, with the first WOW ‘thinkin’ held in Istanbul in September 2019.

For their work and support on WOW Global 24 we would like to thank British Council teams globally and our partners in Bangladesh - CCD Bangladesh and Mongol Deep Foundation, with a special shout-out to Pradhanya Yonzon and Saras Sthapit Shrestha from Nepal for their support in video editing and Ken Subedi for the subtitling. 

About WOW Foundation

The WOW Foundation was created by Jude Kelly CBE in 2018 to run the global movement that is WOW - Women of the World Festivals. The Festivals began in the UK in 2010 to celebrate women and girls, taking a frank look at what prevents them from achieving their potential, raising awareness globally of the issues they face, and to discuss solutions together.

To date, WOW has reached over 2 million people in 17 countries on six continents, in locations including Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, Finland, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Somaliland, the UK and the USA. In 2018/19 WOW was in Rio de Janeiro, Cardiff, Bradford, Bangladesh, Brisbane, Janakpur (Nepal),Baltimore, London, Exeter, Norwich, Perth, Beijing, Ghana and Nigeria.

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