UNESCO’s Global Skills Academy: Celebrating the young women of Dior’s mentorship and education programme

Dior and UNESCO hosted the latest edition of the UNESCO & Women@Dior Global Conference to celebrate gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The event, which took place in Paris on International Women’s Day, was attended by some of the young women who participated in Dior’s mentorship and educational programme. Almost 400 Mentees and 300 Mentors took part in the 2022/20223 cohort.

Opening the event, Emmanuelle Favre, SVP Human Resources for Christian Dior Couture, underlined the importance of education in the “fight against obscurantism, against injustice, against the sacrifice of opportunities everywhere in the world.”

“At our level, it is a fight in which we want to participate [and] education and transmission are core values at Dior,” she said.

Throughout the day, Mentees and Mentors, leaders from the LVMH Group, the House of Dior and UNESCO spoke alongside inspiring public figures and those working for women’s rights in the business and art worlds. Conversations focused on female empowerment and the role of men as allies in supporting women’s success in both their professional and personal lives.

For Olivia Meyer, a programme Mentee from the United States, the “conference spurred creativity, community, and courage.”

“I truly cherished the opportunity to be surrounded by so many talented women who share a passion for uplifting the next generation of changemakers. It was fulfilling to celebrate the value of women and see how the fruits of our ambition can generate positive change in society and transform lives around the world," Meyer said.

On the day, a distinguished jury, which included Maria Grazia Chiuri, Women’s Collections Artistic Director at Christian Dior Couture, and Borhene Chakroun, Director of the Division for Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems at UNESCO, selected the winners of this year's Dream for Change Project. This initiative invites Mentees to work in teams, with the support of a coach, to create a concrete project that has a long lasting and positive impact for the girls in their local communities.

Happy Itros, a finalist of this year's Dream for Change Project, described the initiative as “an amazing self-discovery process to understand [her] talent and strength.” Initially daunted at the prospect of designing a project, she created with her team, Green Craft Academy – which helps young women in the United Republic of Tanzania who dropped out of school to start their own eco-responsible businesses.

“Each coaching session helped me to re-innovate my leadership skills … I was able to start and lead [the] project from scratch with the help of my teammates, mentors and coaches who supported me to understand better how to design and implement the project,” explained Itros.

Other projects from the most recent cohort included assistance to migrant women in their social integration journey through a female support network, and the use of friendship bracelets to introduce young girls to the tech and AI space.

Women@Dior has coached and supported thousands of young women from nearly 60 countries with a focus on five core values: self-care and self-awareness, autonomy, creativity, inclusion and sustainability. Participants are selected from various business, engineering, art, and fashion schools, and are paired with a dedicated Mentor from Dior throughout the programme. They also have access to a dedicated education platform for exclusive courses on subjects including gender equality and women’s leadership for a sustainable future.

The programme is part of UNESCO’s Global Skills Academy, which aims to help ten million young people build skills for employability and resilience by 2029. Speaking at the event, Stefania Giannini, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Education, noted the role of mentorship in changing mindsets and creating societies that are more inclusive, just, and sustainable.

“It calls for mentoring and engagement - to open doors, to build confidence and to create opportunities. This is what the UNESCO@Dior partnership is all about,” said Giannini.