Over 65 students from nine campuses in Wisconsin and Minnesota joined together at the University of Minnesota-Duluth for the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Young Women’s Global Leadership Conference this past weekend. Students learned about and discussed a wide range of issues including local, national, and global priorities for women today; the status of women’s reproductive rights across the globe; international human trafficking; transnational feminist activism; and post-college opportunities for Women’s Studies majors and minors.
Long-time activist Tina Welsh of the Duluth Women’s Health Center, Tina Olson with Mending the Sacred Hoop, and Senator Amy Klobuchar’s (D-MN) state director, Sara Grewing kicked off the conference with a discussion on their individual paths to leadership within the feminist movement. After a day of workshops and plenary sessions, spoken-word poet Venus Jones delivered the keynote address, ending the conference with a collection of her poems.
“I am constantly inspired by the energy and passion that these young women and men have,” said Campus Organizer and Conference Coordinator Samantha Sewell. “The conference helped generate new ideas for campus activism, as well as to connect students from other campuses in order to strengthen the pro-choice feminist presence in the Midwest.” Each semester, the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Choices Campus Program organizes regional leadership conferences in order to provide networking opportunities, skills and capacity building workshops, as well as to make these events available to those who would otherwise be unable to attend the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Conference in Washington, DC.
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