Be Bold For Change 🌺

I always want to blog events in my life as they happen but being such a perfectionist, I find it a challenge. Also juggling what I post on social media about events in addition to writing a post about said event seems a lot to handle at once.

I’ve been involved in a lot of social media projects recently so I’ve actually been putting in effort in what I post. I’ve also gone to some talks, workshops, and training which really did intrigue me. The digital world is an exciting one! πŸ€”


For International Women’s Day 2017, I wanted to create something to communicate all the recent inspiration from the wonderful people around me. I keep talking about how amazing Code First: Girls is both as a place to get started with learning how to code and a positive community.

I really recommend getting involved with them at your local university, find out if they run classes near you! They also run courses for professional women wanting to gain new skills in tech.

With CF:G being at the heart of my inspiration of encouraging and empowering fellow females into learning something that has been labelled as “something guys do”, I decided to showcase some of the amazing ladies who have been involved in the CF:G classes I organise here in Sheffield (follow the journey on Twitter #shefcodefirst!)

Inspired by my recent social media projects, I created a thread of some of the girls taking the course and asked them to answer one of the following questions:

  1. What do you like most about your experience with Cfg?
  2. Why is it important to you that women are recognized in STEM/society in general (go deep if you want and talk about that patriarchy! πŸ‘Š)
  3. Do you have any inspirational stories to share about being a girl in a male-dominated field? (E.g. being freaking awesome in your degree that is classed more ‘boyish’?)

I have to admit the whole “campaign” was quite last minute but the girls who participated gave me such enlightening answers and I couldn’t be more thankful! All in all, it was a successful little project that really got to show off the circle of positive inspiration we’ve generated from this empowering group! You can view the thread here or below in my first Twitter moment.

In addition to this, IWD was quite eventful!

I attended a Women’s Day conference at the university, where I attended a talk by Natalie Bennett, met more wonderful women who work in the university too but I’ve never had the chance to connect with, and learned things about myself from the very informative and engaging workshops! I took a lot of messages from the conference, but the one that really struck me just because it’s so relatable to the community of awesome females in my life right was,

“Women need to get together and work together. Form a group of supporters – it makes things easier and much more successful and possible!”

As lead HTML/CSS course instructor Tejay said, “when we work together, we achieve Yes! πŸ‘πŸΌ

I concluded my IWD with the usual buzz from the CF: G Beginners class but the additional blast of empowerment from our guest speaker of the week, Tanja Lichtensteiger. Tanja does not hold a degree in Computer Science or a degree, she taught herself how to code and program and now is shining in her role as Software Development Team Leader at Leeds Beckett University.

Her story of falling in love with everything in tech after writing code and being amazed that she had the power to tell her computer to do anything was motivating. Being self-taught myself, I could really relate! Her energy is infectious and reminded me why I love what I’m doing – encouraging fellow female students into learning how to code and furthering my learning more despite the stereotypes.

In addition to these wonderful women, I’m lucky enough to know guys who are totally for these huge movements. A big shout out to CF: G instructors, Dave, Chris and Darren to name a few. Collectively, we can have such a positive social impact!

I hope you continue to feel inspired, empowered and happy this International Women’s month! Keep being bold and rockin’ ladies! πŸ‘ŠπŸΌ

Want to read more posts like this?
Below are more posts of me being inspired by inspiring women who are out to inspire me πŸ˜†

13 responses to “Be Bold For Change 🌺”

  1. I wish, wish, wish I’d gotten more involved with International Women’s Day when I was at university, but now that I come to think about it I don’t think there was much surrounding it at mine. Which is sad, but I hope that’s changed!

    I actually didn’t do much on IWD, but I did attend She Runs It! campaign launch, which is a project to empower women through playful and functional means of fitness run by women. It was really fun and I loved the vibes at the launch. I did follow many conversations on Twitter, including yours πŸ™‚

    You are AMAZING Pauline! You are so inspiring, and I love how passionate you are about your field and how you go above and beyond to raise awareness. I LOVE that about you <3

  2. Your project was a terrific idea! Even though it was ind of last minute, it came through nicely! What a lovely way for your community to come together and share their experiences with each other and for anyone else who wants to see women being empowered. Thank you for doing this πŸ™‚

    I think it’s great the talks influenced you well and was relatable. I have mad respects to those who self-teach themselves skills, and I think it’s great you self-taught yourself codes and other skills! Keep it up and never stop learning and empowering others πŸ™‚

  3. It’s great to see you getting involved in all of these great communities and events! I enjoy seeing you grow and develop into a professional individual. School is always the best place to get involved in these types of communities.

    Even though the campaign was pretty last minute, you did a great job with putting everything together! Even more, the ladies were willing to help support you :). That is a sign where you know your group is full of great people. Being self-taught is great! This means you have the ability to be resourceful and learn on your own. I love the collage of empowering quotes and people! Keep on rocking, Pauline :). You’re a wonderful inspiration.

  4. That is pretty dang awesome. Sometimes I really wished I lived in bigger cities for things like this. I (unfortunately) did not do anything for that day. In fact I didn’t even know it was happening because I had my head in work and rest. I found out after the day because of all these awesome posts that people made.

  5. That is a really cool social media project! Even if it was last minute, it looks like it came together well, and you got a lot of participation πŸ™‚ I think that’s great, too, that your university held a Women’s Day conference. As women in tech, we really do need to support each other, especially since we still have so many struggles in this industry. Sounds like it was an inspiring talk!

  6. This is a great project! πŸ™‚ I agree with the others that it came together really well even if it was last minute, and everyone gave really inspiring answers and posts <3

    I'm really in awe of people who are self-taught in the skills they know, just goes to show how much you can achieve if you really want it! πŸ™‚

  7. It’s great that you did something so awesome for International Women’s Day and it’s great to see more and more women getting involved in male dominated careers.

    It’s so cool that taught yourself to code. It’s such a valuable skill to have in today’s world. So many people want websites now!

    I’m actually learning to code again now! I’m only refreshing the basics at the moment, but I’m hoping that I’ll stick at it long enough to get better at coding. I’d love to be able to make a professional-looking website without using a preset theme. It’s so inspiring to be part of a blogging community full of skilled web developers!

  8. We don’t really celebrate Women’s Day in Singapore. It’s more of a marketing campaign for departmental stores though.

  9. It really sounds like a awesome experience! =3

  10. It has been so amazing to read your posts and how much you are dedicated to spreading such a positive message. It’s inspiring and you are inspiring. :’) It’s truly wonderful that you are to connect with so many people in the industry and all support each other. πŸ˜€

    I have been more interested in wanting to help with different events lately. I think part of that has been seeing how much you and Georgie have been doing. It makes me want to try and help in some way as well. πŸ˜€

  11. Ah I didn’t get to do anything for International Women’s Day this year since I was swamped with work. A couple of years ago, it was super fun when all the women on my previous project and I (all 5 of us on the entire project…) joined the Women’s Day corporate conference in San Francisco.

    I definitely support women supporting women, rather than tearing each other down. Your project definitely highlights this. And it’s so great that you were so inspired to do this project. Great job!

  12. I had no idea that it was international womans day, but I admire you for raising awareness. <3

  13. Even though the campaign was last-minute I am not surprised that you got so many responses. This kind of thing is what a lot of women jump on board with. Stories like Tanja’s are inspiring because they are stories about women who conquered a lot of prejudice and stereotypes in order to be the person they are today.

    It is so important for women to empower women as well – we must all join forces to support each other. We need each other’s support to continue to be the best we can be, and to make a real difference.

    I get so much value out of workshops, meetups and talks related to women in tech. I wrote my own post for International Women’s Day after writing one last year. πŸ™‚ Women, not just in tech, have the power to create change πŸ™‚

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