Women Leaders of Tomorrow (WLT) held the Red Lips Week this past week, a week-long project aimed at reminding women at LSE of their strength and power and inspiring students to take pride in their identity. In 2015 when it was first implemented, the project won the ‘Most Creative Campaign’ award at the LSE.
WLT chose red lipstick to represent women empowerment due to its wide historic symbolism of strength and because it allowed them to create an easily recognisable brand for the campaign.
The week started with a bake sale and decoration of the SU with red balloons. The bake sale stall on Monday and Tuesday gave the LSE community the opportunity to share ‘what makes them powerful’, and LSE Director Minouche Shafik left her response “having a good education.” Carina Leung, WLT Head of PR, said that the stall was a success because by asking what made students powerful, they were able to engage in conversation and spread their message of empowerment across the wider community.
On Tuesday, there was a concentra workshop led by specialists in data analytics aimed at answering the question: what influences love at first sight? “We wanted to use the week to empower members of our society and students at lse and give them opportunities to try something new,” said Sarina Aggarwal, WLT Vice President. Aggarwal told The Beaver that the event was a success, opening up career opportunities in analytics and data industries.
This year, the project had much greater involvement of SU officers and a collaboration with the AU Fight Night. SU General Secretary Elumogo was a ring boy and wore a Red Lips t-shirt. “It was empowering to share our message on such a big night for the LSE community,” said Aggarwal.
Aggarwal told The Beaver that overall Red Lips week had positive responses from both male and female students, and her favourite moments were Minouche’s visit to the stall and the Concentra Workshop.
Katie Tesseyman, LSESU Women’s Officer said she is looking forward to the Red Lips public speaking workshop, which was postponed from Friday March 1st due to timetable clashes, because she believes “feeling confident about public speaking can be really empowering for women,” especially when speaking in male dominated environments.
WLT COMMITTEE
