With the atrocities that women are currently facing across the world, this year's International Women’s Day felt different, and we didn’t feel like we could bring value, praise, or perspective to the day when humanity is struggling to safeguard and protect women, girls, and gender diverse people in real-time.

We didn’t want to add to the noise, nor side-line or ignore the larger issues at play by joining the call for celebrating IWD. However, we feel it warrants shouting outside of the void as the movement shouldn’t be reduced to one day. It is about celebrating women every day, supporting women every day, protecting women every day, recognising women every day, lifting women up every day, opening doors for women every day, and not only giving women a seat at the table, but the whole room every day.

Driftime endeavours to embody this every day. As a business, women form the majority of the Drifteam lead by our incredible co-founder Sara Taiyo. With our horizontal structure, we have created a foundation of equity where we encourage all team members to lead, to have autonomy, to share ideas, to take risks, to fail, to speak-up, to disagree, to follow their passions both in and out of working hours, to protect their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, and to think and act outside of the box every day.

What comes next, I hear you ask?

As the volume dials down from IWD, Driftime is committed to amplifying women’s voices, ideas, needs, and wants as we grow together as a team. We are taking action towards equality now, and for future generations of women both in Driftime and in the wider community by continuing our work with Girls' Network to provide mentorship and ongoing support, rewriting our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy to fully envelop period, perimenopause, and menopause, highlighting women in tech by collaborating with the brill Alice and Katie at TDC on opportunities to have our voices, thoughts, opinions, and ideas heard. Lastly, we will be dedicating a month later this year to women in the Drifteam, women in tech, in the creative and design space, and beyond!

For us, it is about continuing the conversation far beyond the reach of IWD.

Join us in speaking outside of the void! How are you going to amplify the voices and needs of women, to support and celebrate women in your business and community? Let’s share ideas together.