Conference aims to encourage female leadership

To help encourage young girls to engage in leadership, a collection of women's groups from around the area have banded together to create the Share Your Voice Conference.

'We want girls to walk away from this conference knowing that their voice can be heard and that they can make a difference in their school, in their communities, in their everyday life,” said Cheryl Noller, vice president of leadership initiatives for Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois.

The conference will take place Saturday at the DoubleTree by Hilton in downtown Cedar Rapids. Admission is $15 per girl and $10 per adult. Financial assistance is available.

The Share Your Voice Conference is a collaboration between the Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois, League of Women Voters of Johnson and Linn counties, University of Iowa Women in Science and Engineering, Girls on the Run of Eastern Iowa, and 50-50 in 2020.

'The idea was to start younger to inspire confidence, rather than waiting until they were in the workforce,” said Linda Schreiber, a member of the board of directors for the League of Women Voters of Johnson County.

The event is open to all girls from fourth to eighth grade and their parents.

The event will begin with performances from Fourth Room Theatre on topics pertaining to leadership and confidence. Then the girls will split into groups and rotate through several hands-on sessions. At lunch the girls will have the opportunity to meet with women leaders including state representatives and city councilors.

Christine Brus, director of the UI Women In Science and Engineering program, said the age group targeted for the conference is important because as girls enter adolescence, various social pressures can affect confidence levels and reduce risk-taking.

'They proceed into later elementary school or junior high [and] girls start being rewarded more for things like being neat, being quiet, being aware of other people's feelings,” she said. 'They also start to understand that they are judged by how they look much more than by how they think.”

Brus added it is important to realize the discouraging of risk-taking by girls is often done unconsciously by adults in an attempt to protect them. She offered a personal example from when her daughter was in elementary school. She took her daughter to the gym to play basketball and she told Brus she was going to ask to play with a couple of middle school boys. Brus said she almost stopped her daughter because she feared they would only be mean to her, but she let her daughter take the risk. While resistant at first, once her daughter proved she could shoot, the boys let her play with them.

'I would have cut off a very positive interaction for all three of them,” she said. 'As parents, we really have to learn to monitor ourselves.”

The conference also includes a parent track. Sessions will include how parents can support their daughters' goals, and better understand how their daughters' changing minds and bodies can potentially have a negative effect on behavior.

'Parents have to keep the conversation going,” Schreiber said.

What: Share Your Voice Conference

When: Saturday, Feb. 7, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Where: DoubleTree by Hilton in downtown Cedar Rapids

Cost: $15 dollars for girls and $10 for adults

More information: The conference is open to all girls fourth through eighth grade. To register or for more information contact the Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois.