When the United Nations Foundation created a platform to empower teenage girls to campaign for the needs of all girls worldwide, they gave life to the Girls Up Leadership Summit. Now in its sixth year, Zandra is excited to help lead the movement as a United Nations Foundation Teen Advisor. In fact, Zandra will be among 300 passionate girl advocates gathering in Washington D.C. from July 16-19, 2017.

Teen advisory remains a game changer!

As a speaker and facilitator of her own 101: Entrepreneurship and Girls workshop series called #GirlBoss, Zandra will have the chance to bring her own brand of change-making skills to the Girls Up United Nations Foundation Leadership Summit. This is also a unique platform where teen advocated will participate in leadership training, learn from influential speakers, engage in skills-based workshops, and lead an official lobby day on Capitol Hill.  It’s an opportunity to create lasting change and that’s exactly what we’re all about.

Zandra will also moderate an exciting and insightful session called ‘Social Impact through many Career Paths’; introducing participants to three amazing women entrepreneurs and inspiring girl advocates:

Kara Ross
CEO & Founder, UNLEASHED

Award winning jewelry designer and renowned philanthropist, Kara’s mission is to create opportunities that break the poverty cycle through education and job creation. As the Founder of Diamonds Unleashed – a social good platform, and partner to Girls Up, we are excited to hear about Kara’s work and philosophy on helping help girls and young women achieve greatness!

Abbey Hudson
Attorney, GIBSON DUNN

High-profile litigator, leading advocate, lobbyist and representative for her firm’s LGBT women’s initiative, Abbey is a dynamic leader that we can’t wait to speak to.  Through her firm and her active pro bono practice, she has successfully brought claims that help international clients in the area of environmental, emerging regulation and government investigations. Abbey’s perspectives on the power of advocacy, in its various formal and informal roles, is sure to be one of our hot topics.

Nona Jones
Chief External Affairs Officer (outgoing)
PACE Center for Girls, Inc.

An accomplished executive with cross-sector experience in private industry, social enterprise, and government, she is also a Billboard charting artist/songwriter who has published three books and travels the country extensively as a motivational speaker and social commentator. Her work at PACE focuses on girls who are vulnerable to juvenile delinquency and sexual exploitation. We are so honored to be able to speak to Nona about her career diversity, the importance of Girl Up and its role in helping to build tomorrow’s leaders!

Why girls?

As you know, the Zandra team are on a mission to support the education of girls across the globe. So, a partnership with the Girls Up United Nations Foundation Leadership Summit is exactly the right fit for us. Kathy Calvin, CEO and President, UN Foundation said it best “What it boils down to is simple: If we want to drive progress in the world, we need to put girls in the driver’s seat.”

This means inspiring girls through education and finding ways to improve their health, safety, social and financial well-being.

Together we empower, educate and embolden the potential of every girl there…

Success is best achieved when working together. There is no international organization who knows this better than the UN. And the United Nations Foundation has the energy and expertise to drive international cooperation. From a grass-roots level, mentorship by Girl Up experts, Teen Advisors, celebrity champions, and corporate executives will gather participants into one thriving community to discuss some of our challenges and hopes. It will also help us to focus on the policies that will shape positive change for girls everywhere.

Let’s Girl Up! What’s in store for participants?

Summit participants will gain core leadership skills, training in community-building and advocacy, and experience interacting with members of Congress on Capitol Hill. The Summit strives to empower, educate and embolden the potential of every girl there. Did you know that as many as 250 million adolescent girls worldwide need our help? So, you can imagine that there will be lots to talk about, many issues raised and much more to learn.

It doesn’t stop there. Our work at the UN Foundation will go beyond the initial three days. Our collective efforts will help to accomplish catalysts for change in each participant’s community. Because as each girl leaves the conference, she’ll take her insights and share it with others, inspiring and motivating her friends, family and even more girls to partner and complete projects centered around educating other girls and young women! This platform will help open a whole new world of possibilities where girls will become ethical, socially aware and involved!

I am so proud to have another powerful and energizing platform to be able to work for girls and to be able to inspire my peers!

You can find out more about the Girls Up United Nations Foundation Leadership Summit and sign-up to member’s news HERE