Sneak Peek:  Cumbre del Liderazgo  

The event Cumbre Del Liderazgo was hosted at TCS Wednesday by the Girlup team who worked non-stop for approximately a year to prepare.

Inspired on the annual Leadership Summit hosted by the United Nations, the Girlup team  invited guests speakers and presenters, prepared several entertaining activities and distributed gifts for participants from TCS, and other guests from the community.  

“Global Girlup base is in Washington, they host a yearly event called The Leadership Summit, and very important people like Michelle Obama and Ajia Mayrock have spoken in the leadership summit. Last year I decided that I wanted to create my own version of it, our own version of it, that will adapt to Medellin ́s needs,” Salome Beyer, founder and leader of Girlup, said. 

Inspired by the Leadership Summit, Salome decided to bring to Medellin this event that is an incentive for empowering, learning, and educating. She was able to engage with some influential speakers that agreed to contribute to the event. These speakers abored topics such as: woman empowerment, healthy food, mental health, and transgender identity. 

“We are gonna have 4  panelists and 3 presentations, Emilio and Juanita Patiño from Marymount school, Isabella Escobar from Fit From Zero and Daniela Maturana who is the council of Medellín,” Beyer said.

In addition to the lineup of speakers, the participants also received lunch, a snack, and some presents, all free, because the Girlup team was able to get sponsored by several brands. They contacted the sponsors 4 months prior the event and manifested their purpose with the event. 

“We started talking with brands like Permessano, Todo Fresa, Crepes & Waffles, Nestle and they are going to be our sponsors, they are going to give us lunch and the refrigerios and we also talked with ASOPAF and they are going to give us pens and notebooks,” Beyer said.

One of Beyer ́s priorities was for the event to be free, because she wanted everyone to be able to attend, regardless of their race, school, ethnicity, gender, etc. She wanted the movement to “Involve everybody,” and went on to say that “Everybody has the capability of changing the world.”

“If you are a feminist speaker and you are just speaking to feminists, its going to make them stronger per say, but what the movement wants is to reach males who are sexists, all genders, all ethnicities, so I think its a good thing,” Daniel Zuloaga, 12th grader at TCS who attended the event, said.

This is the second year the event has been hosted in Medellin, and there was an increase of approximately 70 participants, with a total of approximately 170 participants. This reflects the growth of their movement, and a result of hard work. 

“I feel very proud of the work we have done, and it shows that if you want something and something is your goal you can achieve it with lots of hard work,” Beyer said.