Kripa Gauba, Elise Belcher, Annie Fingersh and Becca Speier worked together to create GirlsLeadKC.
Courtesy photo
A summer internship has morphed into a way for four local teenage girls to address their concerns about female representation in politics. GirlsLeadKC is their organization, and it’s already held its first event.
Annie Fingersh, Elise Belcher, Becca Speier and Kripa Gauba all met this summer as interns in the social change program Startland, a local non-profit that supports entrepreneurs. Startland grouped them together because of their mutual concern that girls aren’t thinking about going into politics because they don’t see enough people in the field who look like them.
The internship helped the girls build skills for designing and launching programs, networking with contacts and thinking about the needs of their audience. Those came into play with their final project.
“We knew that we wanted to mainly focus on high school-aged girls as our target audience. We knew, as high school-aged girls ourselves, not a lot of schools offered the types of learning we wanted to have, having to do with pursuing a career in politics and government,” said Annie, 16, who lives in Prairie Village.
That translated into their first event, a workshop featuring eight women of various professions, including several in political positions such as city council. In addition to this panel, the four girls in charge taught sessions on confidence, public speaking and leadership. Approximately 35 girls attended the event, held at the Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center.
In addition to the political representatives, “we had women who weren’t members of government but who we thought were powerful women who we thought could inspire young women,” Annie said.
To put together the event with no budget, they reached out to various local businesses for donations, a process Annie called one of their biggest challenges. Because they don’t have non-profit status themselves, they operated under the umbrella of Startland for accepting donations.
The other roadblock was the timeline. The girls started planning the Aug. 10 event at the end of June.
To counter their inexperience at planning an event like this, the girls worked with Veronica Alvidrez, internship manager and facilitator of social change internship at Startland, to get advice on how to handle various situations.
“It’s so rewarding to see them being networking experts, knowing how to market themselves. It’s cool to see the confidence they gain through the eight weeks they spend with us,” Alvidrez said. “I think they were super action-driven.
“To me, that’s what stood them apart. While other students were still building a little bit of confidence or still trying to tweak their concept, these young ladies were (saying), ‘We’re committed. We’re doing this.’”
Their outreach paid off, with attendees from Olathe to Spring Hill to Kansas City. Annie said they hope to do another event over the next school year, possibly with a focus on women of color or LGBTQ issues. Lincoln College Preparatory Academy has already reached out to see about partnering for an event.
Post-event surveys indicate that the panel and its accompanying question and answer session was the most popular part of the event.
“High school girls, the things they consistently needed were inspiration and female role models,” Annie said.
The experience wasn’t just about providing resources to others for the four girls in charge but also seeing what they could do when they worked together.
“I learned that I really liked working with other young women who have similar interests as me. I never met women so passionate and determined as I am,” Annie said.
