Check out our events pages for all our events and look at the following Activities and projects:

Alice Hawkins Project

The Annual Conference 2007 theme, and our new focus project is based on a legacy from Alice Hawkins, Leicester’s first suffragette.  She founded the Leicester branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union (1907) and worked with colleagues around the country to gain the Vote for Women. Her grandchildren, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren are working with LeicestHERday Trust taking Alice’s story into schools, museums, culturally diverse communities, use her legacy to understand and overcome the barriers that exist for women today.  We will search for other descendents of our region’s suffragettes to share their stories orally and anecdotally with others.  We will illustrate that the women of the East Midlands were instrumental in the first for women’s suffrage and Leicester, Nottingham and Northampton were hotbeds in the fight for the vote.

Married with this theme is the 200 year celebration of Emancipation of Slavery and the 35 year celebration of the first major influx of refugees into Leicester from the Ugandan Asian community.   Using Alice’s legacy and the theme of women overcoming amazing barriers to empower themselves and their family, we will be working with young people selecting their method in re-telling and reinforcing the story of the right to vote, the right to freedom and the right to citizenship, enterprise and community.

We have several projects arising from the Alice Hawkins legacy with a variety of partners including Leicester and Leicestershire, Connexions, and a range of community organisations.

Tomorrow’s Women Project  

This is a training and nurturing projected intended to increase women’s potential as decision-makers.  We are planning this project with Common Purpose and regional participants.  We are at initial stages and have identified over forty women in our sub region who already hold decision-making roles in business, government and the voluntary sector.  They have agreed to act as mentors.  A mapping project to identify the work areas is one of our first goals. We will use our own website and the LeicesterShire network platform for this initiative.  At the 2007 Conference, we held a discussion group on Tomorrow’s Women led by Common Purpose.  A report will shortly by on the website.

Gender in the Local Labour Market (GELLM)

This project was recently completed following a three-year research initiative with partners including Sheffield Hallam University and Leicester City Council. Three reports resulted in Leicester and another 30 reports from ten other participating cities across the UK.   The reports for Leicester are:

 - Ethnic minority women and access to the labour market
 - Women’s career development in the local authority sector
 - Working below potential- Women and part-time work

The reports conclude that:

 - Women’s aspirations far outweigh their current expectations
 - BME women have a ‘concrete’ ceiling between them and improving their careers and their lives
 - Women work at below their capacity NOT by choice and
 - Women in management need better routes of progression

Our mission using our networks and partners is to make sure that the reports do not remain on shelves.  We must act to change the culture holding women back.  The under-used resource of women in our local labour market is an economic regeneration issue.  We are actively promoting the compact and have developed and prepared an action plan to take to local government, business and providers.

Opening Doors events (formerly called Mini LeicestHERdays & Women’s Days)

These events are held in areas of deprivation and isolation across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.  We target women in these areas (men also attend) to discover a world of opportunities including access to

• Jobs

• Training and education

• Gaining new skills and qualifications

• Career change advice

• Lifestyle improvement

• Childcare services

• Contact signpost and links to providers and agencies

• Opportunities and services

We run twenty of these a year in neighbourhoods where hard-to-reach women can cross familiar thresholds and open up their horizons to enterprise and training.  We have  been awarded a Microsoft Community Award and have five computer notebooks to give these women their first taste of IT to encourage them to sign up for our providers’ access to IT courses and progress through to accredited courses.

Training and e-training

The LeicestHERday Trust runs gender training in association with the Equality & Diversity Support Services and other trainers in race, faith, sexual persuasion, age and disability.  We are continuing our Social enterprise development and planning to run our own training sessions and activities in 2007/2008 for government, business and voluntary sector clients.  These workshops include gender training, gender legal responsibilities, work/life balance and management/ enterprise activities.  In addition, a key part of our training will be for isolated and disadvantaged women in building confidence and raising aspirations.  The women themselves at our Opening Doors events have overwhelmingly identified this training need.

Opening Doors to Science Engineering & Technology  

An annual event for young women. Targeted at female students Key stages 9 to 11, Further Education and University students to encourage them to break the barriers to non-stereotypical careers.  Held in conjunction with the University of Leicester, organised by LeicestHERday Trust and funded by the UK Resource Centre.  This year’s event was oversubscribed and planning is now underway for 2008.

Mind Your Own Business Events

We have held five of these events at venues such as Aylestone Leisure Centre, Highfields Community Centre, Brite Centre Braunstone and Tilda Hall at the Lohana Centre.  We included MYOB as a discussion group at the 2007 Conference.  We will be holding up to five more of these events in 2007 with the purpose of encouraging women to start up business.  We feature top tips in marketing, finance, business planning, management, tax tips and business development.  We use role models to share their experiences with the participants.  We average 100 participants at each event and the feedback and progression has been positive.  Our partners include East Midlands Development Agency, East Midlands Business, Alliance & Leicester, De Montfort University Business Faculty, the NRF Cross Cutting Small Grants programme through Leicester Partnership and VAL, training providders, Prince’s Trust, HM Customs and Excise, and more.

We will shortly be announcing our next MYOB events which will include activities in Ibstock, Greater Humberstone, New Parks and more

Fit & Fun Events  

Events aimed at promoting healthy living, nutrition, fitness and work/life/community balance.   These events are held in conjunction with health and fitness partners and aimed at disadvantaged and isolated women and their families.  We are planning two more events for 2007 with emphasis on enabling women in isolated and disadvantaged areas.  Our partners in this endeavour include a range of fitness and nutrition companies including Abbey Sports, Burleigh Springs (Loughborough).

Celebration Garden Party

An event to recognise women and girls who have made a difference to their homes, businesses, schools and community.  Supported by the Leicester Mercury who print nomination forms in paper, this now annual event is a chance to recognise the contributions made to making a difference in Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland.  500 attended in 2006 and received awards. See events page for past and present Celebration events.

Rajkot Twinning - Letserday

This is a twin city project between the women of LeicestHERday and the women of Rajkot in India. See more about this on this website- listed on Activities.