A 20-year-old climate activist running camping trips for BAME teenagers. A Holocaust survivor campaigning for women to work in engineering at the age of 89. A single mother-of-four feeding hundreds of thousands of hungry families across Hackney.
These are just some of the inspiring women who have shot to success this year for their work in activism, technology, culture and science.
There is a lot to be sad and angry about in the world at the moment, but one thing we can do is to celebrate the amazing women working to make the world a kinder, happier and fairer place.
Here, to mark International Women’s Day, the Evening Standard celebrates 22 London women helping to change the world in 2022. Read, be inspired, and lift them up.
Clotilde Abe and Atinuke Awe
Founders of maternal health equality organisation Five X More
When Awe, 30, and Abe, 32, started their maternal health equality organization in 2019, black women in the UK were five times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth than white women - the inspiration behind their campaign’s name, FiveXMore.
The pair - both mothers themselves - founded their grassroots organisation with a commitment to changing Black women’s maternal health outcomes in the UK. They are the creators of the country’s first Black Maternal Health awareness week every September and their annual month of advocacy is every April. In 2020, their petition calling on the government to improve Black maternal health outcomes went viral with over 187,000 signatures, leading to it being debated in parliament for the first time in history. In September last year parliament held a second debate on the issue and Awe and Abe are continuing to lobby those in power.
In their own words: “One of the challenges women face - and what we often hear while running the campaign - is that they often don’t feel listened to in maternity settings. This can be overcome by health care professionals consciously making an effort to model respectful maternity care in their practices and treating women with a basic level of dignity and mutual respect, regardless of their backgrounds.”
Kitty Bartlett
Founder of Risen, the UK’s first non-male music festival
The 28-year-old’s one-day dance music festival, Risen, takes place in Hackney Wick next month with a line-up “centred around the divine feminine” — in other words, it will run with a programme made up exclusively of women, trans and non-binary artists.
She hopes that the festival, and other projects she’s working on through events organiser Percolate, will help to facilitate change by encouraging conversations with companies across the music industry — be it production and sound companies or agents, managers and other festival bookers. On top of that, £1 from each Risen ticket will go towards Hackney-based charity Sistah Space, which aims to bridge the gap in domestic abuse services for African heritage women and girls.
In her own words: “I feel that a lot of women, non-binary and trans individuals do not feel as safe when they are traveling to and from a club, especially in London where the night tubes are not running like they were pre-pandemic. There are some amazing schemes out there such as Home Safe in London and Strut Safe which can help you to get home safely.”
Mya-Rose Craig
Ornithologist and race and environmental activist
You’ll probably recognise Craig, 19, from her speeches alongside Greta Thunberg and Emma Watson at Cop26 Glasgow. But you’re probably more likely to know her by her nickname, Birdgirl. After a childhood touring the world with her bird-loving parents, the British-Bangladeshi ornithologist is believed to be the youngest person to have seen more than half of the world’s 10,738 birds and now dedicates her time to encouraging young people from minority ethnic backgrounds to engage with the natural world. She organisese camping trips for non-white inner city children through her conservation organisation Black2Nature.
In 2020, she became the youngest British person to receive an honorary doctorate in science from the University of Bristol and her second book, Birdgirl, comes out in June.
In her own words: “Growing up, I was very aware of my race and very aware that there wasn’t anyone else who looked like me out in the countryside except my mum and my sister... Intersectionality is at the heart of everything.”
Dr. Agnes Kaposi MBE
Author and Holocaust education campaigner
Campaigner, educator and author Kaposi, 89, is proof you’re never too old to stop changing the world. The Hungarian-born Londoner survived the Holocaust and escaped to Britain, going on to become a top engineer, where she was often the only woman in the organisation. Her 2020 memoir Yellow Star-Red Star covers everything from witnessing the murder of half a million Hungarian Jews and working as a child labourer in Austrian camps to becoming a woman in science. She is a frequent presenter at the National Holocaust Centre and Museum and recently received an MBE for Holocaust Education and Awareness.
“As far as I can see, there are two major challenges for women: poverty and ignorance,” she says this IWD. “Peace would be the prerequisite for overcoming these challenges; instead, right now we live through times of hatred and mindless, seemingly boundless destruction. Might we overcome the challenges of poverty and ignorance, aggravated by wars and genocides, by putting women in the most powerful positions in the world?”
In her own words: “I don’t expect to change the world singlehandedly, but I do as much as I can, even at the age of 89.”
Michelle Dornelly
Founder and CEO of Children with Voices and Community Food Hub Hackney
100,000. That’s the number of Londoners that single mother-of-four Dornelly has fed since she founded Community Food Hub Hackney in April 2020. It’s part of her charity Children with Voices, which aims to combat obesity, holiday hunger and gang violence. Initially, Dornelly funded the scheme with money from her benefits.
Since then she and her team of volunteers delivered food parcels across the borough seven days a week. Dornelly won a council civic award for her efforts and says she’s particularly proud of the incredible women who stepped forward, “bringing energy, sharing knowledge, spreading hope...”
“As women, we have evolved to deal with the many challenges that we face, and our ability to multitask has long been recognised as the superpower of mothers everywhere. Our lifelong practice at juggling it all has given us the ability to do more than we ever thought possible; the challenge for us is to believe in our strengths and put them to use to make the changes that we want to see in the world.”
In her own words: “In my work I encounter women who want to make a difference in their community, and women who desperately need that help. Sometimes, they can be the same people.”
Dr Helen O’Neill
Fertility lecturer and founder of reproductive empowerment platform Hertility Health
As a scientist, it’s O’Neill’s job to look for answers and as a lecturer in reproductive and molecular genetics at University College London, it’s her job to educate women about those answers. Through her platform Hertility Health, she does both.
The aim of her at-home testing startup is to encourage women to prioritise their health through proactive testing: users are asked to do a virtual health assessment, then Hertility tailors an at-home test according to their symptoms.
“I found it strange that I was lecturing about the risks associated with advanced age and fertility, and yet the denial around it is so pervasive,” says O’Neill, 36, who set up Hertility when she was three months pregnant.
“We’re all career women, working away our fertile years because we have other goals or haven’t settled down. I also realised that there was an emotional and financial barrier to finding out about your fertility. You can’t get anything on the NHS. To be referred, you have to have been trying to get pregnant for a year. It made no sense.”
In her own words: “The greatest challenge women face today is the societal pressure to balance a career and have a family. Due to unsupportive work environments, women sacrifice their fertility, family goals and reproductive health to stay in their jobs. There is a dire need for support and education around the prevalence of infertility in the workplace. There is a need for a change in dialogue to support women who choose both.”
Lynette Linton
Artistic director of the Bush Theatre and TV director
When Linton, 32, was given the top job at the Bush Theatre at the impressive age of 28, she became the youngest person to get the gig. Not long into the role, she was forced to run a theatre through a pandemic, but it hasn’t stopped her shying away from the subjects that matter. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, her cultural leadership was focused and empathetic, including a series of short video works led by her associate Daniel Bailey, and she and Bailey went on to run a crash course in theatre-making for 14-17 year olds from West London.
Alongside the day job, she’s also directing her first National Theatre show, Blues for an Alabama Sky, and her first BBC One show, My Name is Leon, set in 1980s Birmingham and featuring Lenny Henry amongst its all-star cast.
In her own words: “A lot of women of colour have been around for years and we need to shine a light on that. I’m standing on their shoulders. I’m here because of them.”
Alexia de Broglie and Margot de Broglie
Founders of financial empowerment platform Your Juno
The de Broglie sisters Alexia, 25, and Margot, 24, say money was never a taboo for them growing up at home - but they know that for many it is or was. The London-based Gen-Zers both began their careers working in finance and have just raised $2.2m in funding to close the gender gap with their “Duolingo for money” platform Your Juno, which wants to make financial education more inclusive for women and non-binary people.
“During the pandemic - as markets came crashing down - we noticed a huge difference in the types on conversations we were having with our guy- and girlfriends,” they explain. “Men were talking about their crypto investments and bragging about their returns, whereas women were never speaking about investing.”
The pair also noticed that women, particularly women of colour, were hit harder by Covid in money-terms. “Women were the most likely to lose our jobs or leave our jobs to pick up caring responsibilities. It was a major step back in terms of gender equality in the professional environment.”
Their platform, Your Juno, is about changing this. Selina Flavius, author of ‘Black Girl Finance: Let’s Talk About Money’, is among the money experts giving short-form video courses on topics from buying a house to becoming an investor, and much of the content is gamified. It’s been downloaded by more than 10,000 women and non-binary people since launching in October.
In their own words: “In the UK, and in most countries around the world, women still earn less money and own less wealth. A big part of the reason this disparity exists is because men and women are taught differently about money in the media and growing up as children. The impact is that, statistically speaking, women and non-binary people lack financial confidence and education.”
Julie Smith
Psychologist and author sharing mental health advice on TikTok
The qualified clinical psychologist and former NHS therapist, 38, began sharing self-help tips (and catchy dance remixes) under her @drjuliesmith handle shortly before the start of the pandemic and since then she’s amassed more than three million followers, 35 million likes and a lucrative Michael Joseph book deal. Not bad for a busy mother-of-three and full-time therapist filming videos from the kitchen.
“It’s about trying to draw people in,” says Smith, insisting she doesn’t just receive messages about her videos from Gen Z-ers scrolling in their bedrooms, but parents, teachers and even grandparents thanking her for giving them or their loved one an inspirational boost. Her new self-help manual, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, came out in January and is divided into chapters on all the real life problems many of us face, from a low mood and a lack of motivation to stress or grief.
In her own words: “Lots of people don’t have access to therapy so my work is about trying to get those little gems from therapy out into the open. It can be life-changing for people.”
Rachel Chung and Alice Jackson
Founders of safety helpline Strut Safe
The 12-month anniversary of Sarah Everard’s disappearance is a fitting time to be celebrating Chung and Jackson’s project, Strut Safe, a free UK-wide phone service dedicated to helping anyone who needs to get home safely following the murders of Everard, Sabina Nessa, Julia James and Ashling Murphy in the last year. “I felt so enraged and helpless [after Everard’s murder],” says Chung, 28, an Edinburgh University student, who was inspired to take matters into her own hands.
Together with fellow student Jackson, 22, she set about walking people home across the Edinburgh meadows. Quickly, they realised there would be wider demand. Strut Safe is now a fully-fledged, nationwide hotline receiving hundreds of nightly calls from an army of more than 75,000 followers on Instagram. Their team is made up of trained and background-checked volunteers across the country.
In their own words: “If violence against men by women was being committed at the same rate, we would be in a state of national emergency.”
Sadia Azmat
Stand-up comedian and debut author
“Sadia is a comedian who loves sex. She is also a hijab-wearing Muslim woman. The two are in a lifelong relationship, but it’s complicated.” This is the description for Azmat’s upcoming memoir, Sex Bomb: The Life and Loves of an Asian Babe, due to be published in hardback on May 26.
The British-Asian stand-up comedian, 32, hails from east London and has been praised for starting honest conversations on race, religion and sexual liberation. Her BBC podcast No Country For Young Women was nominated as Best New Podcast 2019 and Best Entertainment Podcast 2020 at the British Podcast Awards.
In her own words: “I hope that my work helps show that there is more than one way to look at things. It’s okay to see things from different perspectives and still respect one another. I can be an empowered female and still wish the guy of my dreams is reading this and sends me a DM asking me out.”
Heidi Larson
Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
The Boston-born, Harvard-educated anthropologist, 64, founded the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2010. She quickly gained hero status amid the Covid pandemic for her work tracking how vaccine rumours start (her book, Stuck: How Vaccine Rumours Start and Why They Don’t Go Away, was published in 2020). From her home in north London, she’s spent the last two years educating leaders and medical professionals on misinformation, as well as working with Facebook, Google, WhatsApp and YouTube to understand how this information is spread.
Larson nearly lost her husband, leading virus hunter Peter Piot, to Covid during the first lockdown and while many of us reel from the losses and heartaches of the current pandemic, she’s already thinking ahead to the next one, which could be even deadlier.
In her own words: “I hope that my work will help in encouraging and mentoring young women in science and research, while also supporting their public speaking, activism and policy setting.”
Laura Bates
Founder of the #EverydaySexism project and author of ‘Fix the System, Not the Women’
Since founding the #EverydaySexism project in 2012, Bates, 35, has become something of a spokesperson for the fourth wave of feminism. Her writing and campaigning on sexism, misogny and incel culture have shone a light on the issues women face today and highlighted how much they are all interlinked.
“Police racism and misogyny. The effective decriminalisation of rape. A bombardment of school sexual violence that amounts to a public health crisis. Misogyny in the media. All these issues are systemic, not individual, so they can only be overcome if we shift the focus away from what women should and shouldn’t do and instead demand massive institutional reform and systemic change,” she explains. Her next book, Fix the System, Not the Women, comes out on May 12.
In her own words: “I hope that by raising women’s voices collectively we can create awareness of the ongoing reality of gender inequality and the epidemic of male violence against women. I hope that we can move the conversation away from policing women’s dress and behaviour and focus on men’s actions and societal attitudes instead. I want to let survivors know that they are not alone and they are never to blame.”
Chinonyerem Odimba
Artistic director of British-African theatre company tiata fahodzi
The British-Nigerian playwright, screenwriter and poet, 47, currently works as the artistic director of London theatre company tiata fahodzi, which champions work about British-African heritage communities.
As a playwright and director, Odimba is committed to using the power of storytelling to change the lens through which we see the world. “For me, stories still hold a lot of potential in changing how the world sees and responds to women, especially Black women,” she says. In a recent production of a new play by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Odimba directed an all-female creative team.
“It is not the first this has been done, but it still feels like too much of a rarity in an industry that stands for all the possibilities of imagination,” she adds. “I hope we start to see more of that, and not because male creatives aren’t brilliant but because of the beautiful way it creates a safe space for us to work.
In her own words: “The thing I know I most wish for as a woman, as a Black woman, is that we feel safer in the world. That our safety becomes a priority not just within the workplace, but in our homes, in our streets, and in our imaginations. One key tool for this change to happen is for men to challenge their own thinking, but also to be willing to challenge and stand up to the thinking and behaviour of other men. There is no such things as innocent banter. Any comment that demeans, frightens or attacks women should not be tolerated. Any world that makes women from the global majority feel less than who they are, is not a world at its best.”
Mairead Cahill
Founder of online sustainability community Wonderoom
In the UK, VC investment in women remains at less than two per cent, and BAME women make up only 2.2 per cent of FTSE 250 board roles today. Cahill, 41, wants to change this by championing women in sectors that have traditionally been male dominated, such as in ecology, conservation, climate and media. Through her website, newsletter and online community Wonderoom, she spotlights and supports leaders, brands and creators of of sustainable or “nature-positive” solutions, from ethical beauty companies to women making toxic-free tampons.
Her current focus, Project Now, is all about bringing together a female-led group of forward-looking brands and leaders “to engage on UK nature-based solutions across coast, land and city that have a positive impact on climate and biodiversity, people and business”.
In her own words: “Women have an incredible contribution to make in bringing new forms of leadership and innovation that add real value for people and the planet, and are rooted in principles of community, diversity and equality. I’m excited to be a part of seeing that happen.”
Jacynth Bassett
Founder of age-inclusive womenswear brand The Bias Cut
Bassett, 28, always wanted to work in fashion, but in the end her bright idea was targeted more at her mother’s peers than her own. The Cambridge-graduate noticed the same thing would always happen when she and her mother went shopping together: her mother could only ever find boring, frumpy clothes and if she tried on items from “younger” brands, shop assistants would often make sneery remarks.
Off the back of these comments she founded The Bias Cut, an age-inclusive online womenswear boutique that celebrates and champions women of all ages. Her collections cater to women aged 40 and above and their changing bodies, with sales rocketing by 463 per cent over the first year of lockdown.
In her own words: “By unapologetically celebrating and championing women of all ages through my work, I hope to uproot heavily ingrained ageist and sexist stereotypes, and break down societally and personally imposed ageist barriers that currently denigrate, underappreciate, and ultimately ignores the true value of every women at every age.”
Mary Ann Sieghart
Radio presenter and author of The Authority Gap
Sieghart’s work focuses on another gap that needs addressing when it comes to tackling gender inequality: the gap between how seriously men and women are taken in society. Her new book, The Authority Gap, is all about this unseen bias and about what we can do to change this, featuring interviews with pioneering women from Baroness Hale to Bernadine Evaristo.
“At the moment, we tend to assume a man knows what he’s talking about until he proves otherwise, while for a woman, it’s all too often the other way round,” says Sieghart, 60, a presenter on Radio 4. “Yet we all know that women are just as competent and expert as men. It’s time that we treated them that way and accorded them equal respect.”
In her own words: “Women face so many challenges, but one of the greatest is to persuade their male partner (if they have one) to share the unpaid work at home equally. This may feel like a chore for men - after all, that’s exactly what it is - but it will pay off for them. All the evidence shows that men in these equal relationships are far happier and healthier. They’re twice as likely to say they’re satisfied with life, half as likely to be depressed, have a much better relationship with their partner and children, and get more frequent and better sex! So guys, it’s massively in your interest to shape up at home.”
Layla Andrews
Artist and curator of Brixton Village’s International Women’s Day 2022 exhibition
At 25, the Brixton-based abstract artist has already caught the eye of Barack Obama and Stephen Fry, collaborated with charity elites from Pride London to Choose Love, and been selected as the resident artist at Brixton Village.
Her latest project has been curating the Village’s International Women’s Day exhibition, ‘A Fish Without A Bicycle’, which runs from March 9 to 14 and celebrates women supporting women in a humorous response to the slogan ‘a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle’. Expect 20 original works from sculpture, collage, photography, drawing and painting by seven talented female artists, including Jo Kitchen, Louisa Tratalos, Gayle Ebose, Imogen Allen, Charlotte Mei, Melissa Kitty Jarram, and Sheila Maurice-Grey.
In her own words: “For too long the art industry has been dominated exclusively by only a certain type of person. Women from minority backgrounds and working class women need to feel there is space for them and that their work is valued. Opportunity and resources are basic requirements if you are to try and access the art industry. The cultural sectors are crying out for diversity and as a collective we must all embrace and push for a more inclusive and accessible future for the arts.”
Stephanie Johnstone
Explorer and founder of non-profit documentary series A Million Voices
The explorer and former forensic psychologist, 34, founded non-profit weekly documentary series A Million Voices in June 2021, about what it means to be human. Next month she embarks on Expedition Silk Road, a 9,000km journey through some of the most remote corners of the world to shine a light on remarkable human stories that “give a window to a kinder and more compassionate world”.
“So many women and girls are denied the right to an education, forced into an early marriage, and their voices are not being heard,” she says. “I aim to change that story, by releasing a beautiful photo book which will feature the stories of 100 powerful Female leaders and change makers from Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Iraq. These women are not just leading by example, they are also wonderful role models who will be offering live-stream events to local schools, to raise awareness and provide guidance and advice to younger girls.”
Johnstone will also host regular live-streams from schools she visits along the way, with all profits from her photo book being used to distribute a print to these schools afterwards.
In her own words: “There is a real lack of Women in Adventure in the mainstream media. I believe it’s critical that young girls grow and nurture a connection with the outdoors, and for that to happen they need more female role models in the outdoor adventure industry.”
