The Problem
WeGo! aims to shatter the glass ceilings hindering women's equal representation in leadership. Hawaii experiences significant outmigration, with around 50% of students leaving due to the high cost of living and perceived limited opportunities. WeGo! seeks to address this by creating more opportunities for fostering female leaders, starting right at home in Hawaii.
My dad, a champion for gender equality, instilled in me the importance of independence. When I needed an escape or distraction, he would take me cruising, saying "We go." Those words represented his support. I want all girls to feel empowered and supported, just like I did when I heard those two words. I love the name WeGo! because it incorporates local pidgin slang, tying it to our founding place and reminding us of the values of aloha (love), kuleana (responsibility), laulima (many hands at work), and mālama (stewardship) that we promote everywhere WeGo!
In Hawaii, our unique and tightknit community is often affected by the departure of talented individuals who never return. That is why it is crucial to nurture local changemakers who can create positive transformations within our small, yet mighty community. I am dedicated to fostering leaders, particularly underrepresented groups like women, who will pass on their na`auao (wisdom) to future leaders, perpetuating a cycle of changemaking in Hawaii.
Your Solution
My approach in fostering strong female leaders is through a regimented 4-step process. No one girl is the same, so it is important to accommodate their individual journey in becoming a changemaker. Our process guides girls from start to finish from discovering their passion, building confidence, and finally creating a venture that incorporates their passion and produces positive community change. Similar programs are yet to be seen in Hawaii because of our special focus on empowering local voices from a teenager perspective and applying this to a greater community. More can be found here!
Where do WeGo?: Podcast with primarily women from Hawaii from a variety of fields with over thousands of listens, available on over 9 platforms, and has listeners from over 10 different countries and 23 US states!
Women in Tech: Conference with over 1,000 participants able to hear stories from leading women in tech companies like Netflix, Tesla, Venmo, Apple, and more!
Business Workshop: Series of workshops to help girls build the confidence they need to start their own business.
WeGo! Leadership Program: Girls with individual passions create their own projects under our guidance.
Student Entrepreneur of the Month: Series on our social media highlighting female students entrepreneurs.
Founding Story
My dining room table is my Aha! moment. It is where I eat dinner with my family, but also with the over 80 Japanese exchange students that I have been hosting since 3rd grade. I heard thousands of stories with a single common thread: they were all making a chase.
Some escaped bullying, chasing after social acceptance. Some struggled to find jobs, chasing after education and employment in America. Some were divorced mothers getting a degree, finally chasing after their childhood dreams.
I am building something where women don’t have to make their chase alone, but rather with a larger community.
Your Impact
"This feels unreal. When you think of change, you think of big companies and being able to do it with my own hand feels unreal." This is what middle schooler, T (for confidentiality reasons) had to say about our program. 74% of her school's population is economically disadvantaged. Yet, we were able to help T start her own sticker business where she promotes creativity and self-expression in her community.
The WeGo! Leadership Program has supported the creation of over 50 projects, like T's business, with our 4-step process. I've assembled a core team of over 30 students who together, are fostering changemakers and breaking glass ceilings! Now, I'm currently helping over 200 girls work through our process as we speak! I’ve also been able to open national and international WeGo! chapters in California, Tokyo, Osaka, and Tohoku. The Japan leaders went through our process, identified the issue of a lack of awareness regarding gender inequality among Japanese girls, and are working towards spreading awareness by creating events to help create a network of leaders to address this lack of knowledge. Moving forward, my plan is to continue to further implement our 4-step process by establishing more chapters and developing centralized cohorts of student leaders around the world that foster leaders using our process in order to create supportive communities for changemaking everywhere.
Video
