Today is International Women’s Day 2019, and this year's IWD theme is #BalanceforBetter →, encouraging us to play a part in driving gender balance across the world. You can read all about the IWD movement here →

Our studios across the world have celebrated the women that make us all better. Here's how:

Girls, Inc. gives girls aged 6-18 – from diverse ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds – access to vital education programs that inspire them to be strong, smart and bold. Nearly 65% of the girls they work with live in families earning $30,000 or less a year. A testament to their efforts, more than half of their alumnae go on to study in the STEM fields in college and most are accepted to schools ranked as somewhat selective or higher.

We look forward to hosting a representative from the Girls Inc. team later this year to share more on how we can increase our engagement as potential mentors.

London

In London we invited all staff to write a message to a woman that inspires them for a motivational internal video, and the team are now working toward their Diversity and Inclusion Week at the end of March.

Melbourne

In honour of International Women’s Day, the Melbourne studio is supporting social enterprise ‘Fitted for Work’ → which aims to assist women experiencing disadvantage find meaningful employment. In addition to a clothing drive, in the coming months the studio will be hosting a workshop to mentor the women, helping them develop their skills and build their confidence.

The studio celebrated International Women’s Day a screening of short films depicting inspiring women who are paving the way to a more gender-balanced world.

Sydney

Committee for Sydney International Women’s Day event

The Grimshaw Sydney studio were honoured to be invited to participate in this year’s Committee for Sydney’s International Women’s Day Breakfast as Silver Sponsors. Andrew Cortese, Michael Janeke, Tamara Frangelli and Amalia Mayor attended the event, listening to a presentation and discussion shaped around the paper ‘Safety after dark: Creating a city for women living and working in Sydney’ developed by the Committee for Sydney , XYX Lab at Monash University and Plan International. While Sydney is generally considered a safe city by global standards, the compelling research highlights the often unspoken realities of harassment and assault lived by women living and working in Sydney city.

Grimshaw Sydney’s studio, located in the heart of the CBD has always prioritised duty of care and wellbeing as fundamental to our work environment. We plan to survey our people to understand their current perspectives on safety and their views on this critical issue in the City where we work.

If you are interested to know more please click on the link for the detailed report →.

Australian Institute of Architects International Women’s Day Breakfast

10 representatives from the Grimshaw Sydney studio attended the Australia Institute of Architect’s IWD Breakfast at the Australian National Maritime Museum to see Oi Choong receive this year’s Marion Mahony Griffin Prize for Women in Architecture. With over twenty five years’ experience as a landscape architect in the public and private sectors as well as founding CONTEXT Landscape Design in 1990, Choong spoke to the challenges, achievements and joys she has experienced throughout her career, highlighting the importance of education in long term strategy with the following quote:

“If your plan is for one year plant rice. If your plan is for ten years plant trees. If your plan is for one hundred years educate children. ”

• Confucius