For the annual POWER, TOGETHER. AWARDS, the Reykjavik Global honours outstanding initiatives, where people join forces to effect great change.
The power to advance society – to change and move things in a positive way – comes from using our power, together. This is especially true when change is needed to increase the number and influence of women leaders.
Together, women can make the changes necessary; together, women can create societies of better diversity; together, women can make sure the future holds as many opportunities for girls and women as for boys and men.
POWER, TOGETHER AWARDS
2024 AWARD WINNERS
The POWER, TOGETHER Awards 2024, honour outstanding initiatives where people join forces and use their power to advance society together and achieve great change, were presented during a ceremony at the Reykjavík Global Forum on November 12th 2024, as the Forum convened in Iceland with more than 500 Conversationists.
The 2024 POWER, TOGETHER Awards is
proud to honour the following recipients:
Girl Rising, GWL Voices, and SheDecides.
GIRL RISING
Research shows that when girls have access to education, their families and communities benefit profoundly, leading to healthier, more prosperous societies and a more sustainable future. Girl Rising is committed to building a world where every girl has the chance to learn and thrive.
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Girl Rising is awarded the Power, Together Award to recognise their profound impact on behalf of 129 million girls out of school globally. Educated girls grow into empowered women who contribute to their communities and take on leadership roles, vitally tackling global issues.
GWL VOICES
GWL Voices is a powerful collective of over 70 women leaders from diverse backgrounds and regions, all committed to creating a gender-equal international system that effectively addresses today’s pressing issues in sustainable development, peace, security, and human rights.
GWL Voices is awarded the Power, Together Award to recognise their crucial work to empower citizens to use their voices and experiences to influence global leaders, placing women’s rights and transformative power at the heart of global governance. By championing a gender-equal international system, GWL Voices is driving the change needed for a more equal world.
SHEDECIDES
SheDecides is dedicated to building a world where everyone has the power to make their own choices about their body. By speaking out against opposition and resisting the rollback of rights globally, SheDecides is a catalyst for collective action and change.
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SheDecides is awarded the Power, Together Award to recognise their diverse global movement, which is a driving force for bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.
2024 AWARD CEREMONY
2023 AWARD WINNERS
KVENNAFRÍ
Kvennafri is a women-led movement advocating for gender and income equality in Iceland. The movement dates back to October 24th 1975, where women all over Iceland left work, and did not do any housework or childcaring at home to demonstrate the importance of women’s contribution to society. 25,000 women out of a population of then 220,000 people in Iceland, took part and gathered in the capital of Reykjavík for a rally. This day was popularly called “Kvennafrí”, or ‘Women’s Day Off’.
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The following year, the Icelandic Parliament passed a law guaranteeing equal pay. The strike paved the way for the election of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the first democratically elected woman president in the world, five years later, in 1980. The strike also resulted in the creation of the Women’s Alliance Party that ran for the first time in local elections in 1982 and parliamentary elections in 1983.
In 1985, 25,000 women left their work again to protest income inequality. And the Women’s Day Off continued to take place in 2005, 2010, 2016 and 2018 where women also rallied for gender equality. Recently, on Tuesday 24 October 2023, more than 100,000 women and nonbinary people in Iceland joined another one-day strike, the country’s largest effort to protest workplace inequality in nearly five decades.
#Kvennafri is being awarded the Power, Together Award to recognise their important, continuous, and tireless work to highlight gender inequalities, particularly income inequalities, in Iceland, even as the country ranks first for gender equality globally, proving that the work for gender equality is never finished.
PROJECT
DANDELION
Project Dandelion is the first global, women-led campaign for climate justice. Their mission is to build a chorus of voices that will help us to reach and motivate 2 billion people to ACT for Climate Justice.
Every movement needs a symbol. The Dandelion is designed to be the connecting tissue between all the elements of the growing climate justice movement - schoolchildren with Fridays for Future, young people protesting, indigenous peoples with their wisdom, local communities, progressive business leaders, religious leaders, artists, philanthropists - the list goes on. Women leaders will bring a new galvanising energy to this movement.
Project Dandelion is being awarded the Power, Together Award to recognise their invaluable work and focus on mobilizing women leaders to take action to secure a safe climate future for all.
GLIDE initiative
GLIDE Initiative,
led by Outright International, Synergía, and IFES
The Global LGBTQI+ Inclusive Democracy and Empowerment (GLIDE) Initiative is a unique collaboration between Outright International, Synergía – Initiatives for Human Rights and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). GLIDE seeks to stimulate the participation and engagement of LGBTIQ people and organisations in democratic spaces and processes.
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The GLIDE Initiative puts LGBTIQ people at the helm of democratic initiatives. It enables LGBTIQ people to participate and influence decision-making to advance acceptance and be a force for addressing exclusionary laws, practices and norms that seek to dismantle democracy and LGBTIQ rights.
GLIDE Initiative is being awarded the Power, Together Award to recognise their crucial work to reduce inequalities and transform the future for LGBTIQ people globally, and particularly for facilitating participation of LGBTIQ people in decision-making in the Global South, where discriminatory laws, practices and norms, and barriers to democratic participation are often particularly prevalent and severe.