WOW is a global festival movement launched by Jude Kelly CBE at Southbank Centre, London in 2010 that celebrates women and girls, and looks at the obstacles that stop them from achieving their potential. To date, WOW has reached over one million people worldwide and this number is growing year on year. So far, there have been 45 festivals in 15 cities across 5 continents. Now WOW is coming to Norwich!
Each festival around the world – made up of talks, debates, music, activism, mentoring, pop ups and performance – celebrates women and girls, takes a frank look at what prevents them from achieving their potential, raises awareness globally of the issues they face and discusses possible solutions. It reaches girls and women, boys and men from a broad range of social backgrounds and supplies a completely different sense of action and energy than a conventional conference approach.
Previous speakers have included Malala Yousafzai, Christine Lagarde, Salma Hayek, Annie Lennox, Gordon Brown, Julie Walters, Patrick Stewart and many more including hundreds of women and men who don’t have public profiles but are working everyday to achieve gender equality. Over 25,000 people came to WOW London in 2017, thousands more have come to WOWs across the world and festival organisers have collaborated on cross-continental projects.
