This year Crisis Skylight Birmingham celebrated International Women's Day with 2 member facing events.

First, our Member Forum welcomed 3 inspirational women speakers who shared their personal and professional journeys with us.

All guest speakers shared different insights into their professional lives.

We learnt some top-tips about applying / accepting and starting a job - focusing on making sure that the job is right for you and to keep your well being at the forefront. We learnt about accepting and giving feedback, understanding that negative to positive feedback takes over your thoughts and emotions with a 3:1 ratio and we discussed why not to make assumptions, to always do our best, and to not take feedback about your work personally.

We heard a personal story about navigating school, college and the workplace as a mixed-race woman who was at risk of becoming homeless when younger. We learnt about the importance of role models and mentors being represented by all backgrounds and communities, and becoming a role-model and/or mentor yourself when the time is right.

And finally, we were treated to poetry which explored different stages of life and how poetry helped the individual deal with grief. This passion for poetry then turned into a career. We were inspired to try something new and find a new passion, and then go for it - be that poetry, art, running, anything!

Thank you so much to our amazing speakers. Our members loved the session and were motivated and encouraged to continue the fight for gender equality.

The following week we got together with our Power Up! Group, a group created for our female-members. This group meets monthly to discuss and learn about different topics - all chosen by our members. This month we had a wonderful talk by Students from BCU Dietetics students who ran a food and nutrition workshop. We spoke about balanced eating; making healthy, low cost meals; ideas for some no-cook snacks; did some myth busting; watched some recipe videos created by the students and had a chance to ask any questions. It was such a great session, thank you to Imogen, Nishat and Rían.

Following the nutrition talk, we thought it was time to celebrate International Women's Day and all our amazing women at Crisis Skylight Birmingham. We had some fun whilst having delicious (and nutritious) food from The Real Junk Food Project, we designed and potted mini cacti and succulents for our members to take away and we had some great conversation all whilst listening to a women-powered Spotify playlist!