I’m Rianna, currently living in London and working remotely as a marketing intern at a digital marketing agency. I first discovered Young Women’s Trust through a quick internet search whilst I was looking for support during my career change from hospitality to marketing. After connecting with them, I was able to secure my current internship mostly after receiving job application feedback and coaching at the end of last year through the Work It Out program.
When I learned about the opportunity to be part of the co-creation project with Shift, I was thrilled at the prospect to collaborate with other women through Young Women’s Trust and learn more about the process of creating and shaping new projects.
Safe, accessible women’s networks
Through my involvement in the project, I gained a broader perspective on the different types of networks that could be beneficial for young women, beyond just professional connections. During the workshops, we decided what kinds of networks would benefit us and others similar to us, our concerns about networking, and how to make a network feel safe and accessible.
Listening to the other young women’s wants and needs from a network was eye-opening and I discovered although sometimes we may want different things, many of us want the same key aspects from our networks and echoed shared experiences with networking in our own personal and professional lives. Before this experience, I was anxious to join the project, as public speaking is quite daunting to me. However, throughout the workshops, the project coordinators created a safe space that allowed me to contribute and collaborate toward the common goal.
My overall experience of the project was wonderful and allowed me to develop my teamwork skills, and I felt confident in expressing my opinions about the topics we discussed. And I can safely say that I would love part of future workshops and programmes with the Young Women’s Trust after this project.
Moving forward, I’m very excited about the future developments in the project, especially after the wide range of network ideas we created and discussed together, and I have walked away from this experience, feeling very grateful for the personal growth it has allowed me to achieve and the wonderful women that I was able to connect with throughout this project.
