Women in the Creative Arts take centre stage at LIT’s International Women’s Day event

LIT began International Women’s Day 2021 by raising the International Women’s Day flag at its campuses on Monday, 8th March. The flag raising ceremony was followed by a number of online events in recognition of the United Nation’s theme for international women’s day Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.

Meanwhile, women in the creative arts led LIT’s International Women’s Day discussion on resilience, support, building confidence and ensuring parity of pay and recognition for female creatives. The webinar “Conversations on Creativity during Covid” featured discussions and performances from established female creatives and looked at how female creatives, from some of the industries most severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, worked and supported each other through a year of challenges and limitations.

The event included an opening address from the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin; a panel discussion involving established artists, designers, musicians and authors; live music; short videos of emerging female artists who were involved in Creative Europe Wom@rt’s project led by Limerick School of Art & Design and an exhibition of their work.

The Wom@rt’s innovative pilot training programme, which ran from September to November 2020 supported emerging female creatives by equipping them with an invaluable range of skills and competencies in areas such as financial management, professional writing, pitching and presentations, branding and marketing. The training programme also cultivated a peer network among the diverse group of training participants.