The WOW Foundation, known for running WOW Festivals – the biggest, most comprehensive festival celebrating women, girls and non-binary people in the world, has today announced the next leg of its UK-wide WOW Girls Festival tour. Running through to 12 March 2024, the Festival will be brought to a close with a special event at Buckingham Palace with WOW’s President Her Majesty The Queen on 12 March, following International Women’s Day (8 March).
The WOW Girls Festival Bus will park up at the Palace for the event, and Her Majesty will meet young people who have taken part in the Festival. The WOW Girls Festival is a force for change across society in how it sees girls, their potential and the opportunities it offers for their future, both in the UK and overseas, working with global partners.
The next leg of the WOW Girls Festival tour starts in February in partnership with The Garage, Norwich in their sister venue, The Workshop, on 7 February in Kings Lynn. WOW will deliver after school sessions with 11-18 year olds, featuring arts and drama. On 8 February the WOW Girls Festival Bus will head to a school in Norwich followed by The Garage after school, for a workshop with young people. On 9 February the Bus will park up at Attleborough‘s community organisation, The Lighthouse Charity, and be visited by local schools and young people.
The WOW Girls Festival Bus will then be off to Glasgow on 12 February for a day working with young people at Platform arts centre. On 13 and 14 February in Perth, WOW will work in partnership with Gender Equality Perth in a series of school and community workshops in the city and surrounding areas.
Next up is Manchester; in partnership with Factory International, on 29 February the WOW Girls Festival Bus will visit a local secondary school and on 1 March the Bus will be at Aviva Studios, where WOW Speed Mentoring will take place with up to 80 young people.
In partnership with Bradford Council, the WOW Bus will then travel to Bradford, where it will engage with local schools and creative organisations. On 2 March, Impressions Gallery and City Library will host a fun-filled day of family activities until 4pm, then a later event for teenagers and adults from 5pm. On 3 March the tour will collaborate with Keighley Creative in Keighley for creative activities celebrating local women and girls. The tour will visit a school in Shipley on 4 March with activities for pupils in the full recording studio on board the Bus. On 5 March the Bus will visit a school in East Bowling in the morning, followed by an afternoon session with MAPA Cultural Arts Centre, who will be designing and creating a mural that will sit in their locality. The Bradford tour will end on 6 March, where it will visit local schools in the morning, followed by an afternoon session focused on women and girls in sport, with a panel and taster sessions at Sedbergh Sports and Leisure Centre, alongside Speed Mentoring with students from Bradford College and the University of Bradford.
To celebrate International Women’s Day weekend, the WOW Girls Festival Bus will be back in London to work with schools in Newham on 8 March.
The Girls’ Futures Report 2022 found that girls’ confidence dips between the ages of 14 and 18 and does not recover significantly. The 2022 Steer Education report also revealed that girls as young as 11 are hiding signs of “deep distress” from their parents and teachers, with doubts about their futures and limiting self beliefs cementing themselves in teenage years. The WOW Foundation is now joining forces for the second time with BBC Children in Need (CIN) to launch the WOW Girls Festival tackling some of these issues. Their previous collaboration in 2020, as part of the groundbreaking CIN A Million & Me programme, found that fun, happiness and creative self-expression were particularly important approaches to addressing the identified gaps in the provision of activity to tackle gender difference. WOW has now created WOW Girls Festival shaped from these findings and focusing on better outcomes for girls and all young people. The Festival will tour the UK until March in a special ‘WOW Girls Festival Bus’.
The WOW Girls Festival Bus is an interactive space created with and for young people, working with Getaway Girls in Leeds and artist/designer Emma Hardaker. Throughout the Bus, visitors can take part in a creative exploration of gender equity, through play, reading, digital experiences and a recording studio. The WOW Bus will host Speed Mentoring, panel talks and discussions, taking workshops and activities to all corners of the UK, reaching young people from all backgrounds in the heart of their own communities. With a focus on girls, but including all young people, activities from the Bus are designed to build resilience, wellbeing and good mental health. Tour stops include Kent, Glasgow, North Wales, Liverpool, Norfolk, Belfast, Bradford and Manchester.
The WOW Girls Festival is supported by BBC Children in Need and in partnership with WOW UK Girls Champion Barbie who are extending the tour to reach primary aged children, and WOW Global Girls Champion Standard Chartered Bank who are supporting the Girls Festival’s international reach.
The WOW Girls Festival Bus is funded through a partnership between The WOW Foundation and BBC Children in Need and the tour is supported by Arts Council England.
The WOW Foundation is proudly supported by its Global Founding Partner Bloomberg.
