Women of the World Festival brings community leaders, members together for a day of empowerment
The Women of the World or 'WOW' Festival took over downtown Baltimore on Saturday. Leaders, community members, and game-changers celebrated women's achievements while addressing their challenges.
Dominique Dawes, three-time Olympian and Maryland native, was recognized and awarded for her achievements while serving as the festival's headliner. WJZ's very own Denise Koch had a sit-down conversation with Dawes during the event as well.
The WOW Festival, founded by Jude Kelly in the United Kingdom in 2010, has brought together over five million people through these events across six continents.
"I started it because I was a woman in the arts. I'm a senior woman in the arts," Kelly explained. "And I felt as if there just weren't enough stories of the lives of girls and women being told across the world about all the things we've achieved, all the success, the many battles that we had to face, the ones that we still have to face."
Kelly's vision is to bring together leaders, changemakers, and community members to celebrate women's achievements and find solutions to overcome inequities.
"And I thought if we could get together and celebrate the ideas together, and the history together, then we could have a much greater excitement about what change could look like," Kelly told WJZ's Janay Reece.
Baltimore was selected as one of two locations in North America where the festival is held every other year. Maricka Oglesby is the executive producer for the WOW Festival in Baltimore and helped bring the event to life in Charm City.
"We are celebrating the strengths of the women and girls who build, care, and create Baltimore. It is about the stories, the real grit, the perseverance and resilience of our city and our women and girls and the contributions they made," Oglesby explained.
The day is filled with live panels, performances, and interactive workshops on mental health, creativity, and activism.
Chinenye Ofor and her friends are a part of the Hill-Lopes scholars program at Towson University. On Saturday, they were among the nearly 500 attendees at the Women of the World 'WOW' Festival.
"I think it's just nice to see what's going on in the community and all over the world," Chinenye Ofor said. "Nice to see women from like different disciplines at different places all over the world, take what they really believe in and what they learn and translate it into everyday action and belief and tangible efforts."
"I think that as a young student...it's really important to see that representation and to just be able to learn from them," McKenzie Horne said.
"I just thought it was a really good opportunity to, you know, come and like, immerse myself into a different area," Izzy Cole said.
Jude Kelly made it clear that the festival is not only for women, but men too: "...it's something where I say, if you know a woman or you're a woman, it's for you."
Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU), a private Catholic institution established in 1895 to educate leaders to transform the world, served as the event's main sponsor.
"We are very proud to be the first Catholic College for Women to award the Baccalaureate degree in the country. So great alignment with the viewpoints of WOW, and many in demand, academic programs," Carroll Galvin, the VP for Institutional Advancement and University Communications at NDMU, said. "[We are] really looking to help the community."
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