From Sicily to a Global Summit : Meet Aurora Pinelli

The Fora Network for Change is a Canada-based centre of excellence for young women’s leadership development. It was originally founded by women’s rights activist Farah Mohamed and operated as G(irls)20 between 2009 and 2021. It now aims at advancing gender equality in private and public decision-making spaces. As delegates, we are provided with unparalleled opportunities like joining global roundtable discussions at UN Women, access to leaders in politics and civil society, and a customised training programme that teaches skills specific to the change we want to create in our communities. 

This year, 30 delegates were selected, representing 25 countries around the world. One of the highlights of the programme was a week-long intensive and transformative training that took place in Toronto, Canada in November 2022: we learned new practical skills and actively engaged with the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which is the main global body solely dedicated to women's empowerment and gender equality.

Following this training week, we will make recommendations to our CSW country representatives and other stakeholders to influence the conversation held each year at UN headquarters. This year’s CSW priority theme is innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.

My origins and my life experience contributed to making me a feminist advocating for women’s rights. I come from Sicily, one of the poorest Italian regions, whose history and present are shaped by the Questione Meridionale, namely the persistent backwardness in the socio-economic development of the southern Italian regions. In the south of Italy only 3 women out of 10 work, compared to 6 out of 10 in the north. Sicily is the area in Europe with the worst combination of low fertility, low female employment, and high child poverty.

I thus became involved in several advocacy initiatives and my specialisation in philosophy at UCL helped me discover feminist theories and in particular intersectionality. I understood the kind of intersectional discrimination experienced by southern-Italian women. Then, during my professional experience in transitional justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina I did legal research on conflict-based sexual violence which led me to join the King’s College Association Women in War and International Politics. Therefore, when I discovered the Global Summit, I thought it could be an amazing opportunity.

I strongly believe that representation allows you to visualise achievements and foster the mental imagination needed to pursue one’s goals. And I was proud to be one of the first Sicilian women representing Italy at an international conference. I hope this can inspire other young women coming from the South to pursue their ambitions!

It was one of the best experiences of my life: it fostered my confidence and gave me hope in terms of human solidarity, empathy, and resilience. I met incredible young women, who are currently shaping their communities empowering women and non-binary people. Together, we took training in strategic problem-solving, impostor phenomenon, authenticity in leadership, negotiation, and policy advocacy. We also had the opportunity to engage with the indigenous youth in Toronto, the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. It is important to recognise these names to ensure we are not future contributing to language used as a tool for colonialism. This experience taught us a lot about the reconciliation process that is currently taking place in Canada.

Apart from drafting recommendations to CSW, we are also engaged in a mentorship session that contributes to helping us advocate in our local communities and engaging in gender equity impact initiatives. For instance, the Cameroonian delegate Massi Martha produced and recently released a web series addressing important conversations such as quality education, peer mentorship, and domestic violence through a Cameroonian lens; while the Romanian delegate Cristina Pogo is about to launch FeminEast, a project aiming at fostering female financial literacy in Eastern Europe. The Global Summit was certainly crucial for all of us in the development of our project and our personal growth as young leaders!

I was recently awarded the Allen & Overy Excellence Scholarship (FR), which granted me funding for the development of a social impact project: Legal Change. It aims to structurally tackle the challenges and underrepresentation of women and individuals with diverse backgrounds in decision-making spaces in the legal field. We will be delivering diversity, inclusion, anti-oppression, anti-racism, and skills-enhancing training and workshops for Sciences Po's Law School students with an intersectional approach.

According to recent statistics, only 20% of women become CEOs in law firms. If this data is accurate, then for every four of our male classmates and friends studying with us at Sciences Po, only one of our female classmates will rise to positions of leadership and power. The rates drop even further when gender intersectionality plays a role. Perhaps the few women of colour in our law classes will not even have the chance to enter leadership positions. 

This project will allow for the education of more socially conscious lawyers and jurists who will recognise the value of diversity when occupying decision-making spaces in the legal field. The aim is to bring a different perspective to our work environment in the legal field to understand how we can achieve our professional goals while contributing to systemic change. 

I will continue working with the amazing team I built for Legal Change, Tess Massini, Milena Caye, Gaspard Nouind, Elise De Kelijn and Edouard Seiler, and keep being inspired by their teamwork and motivation! We are working to be elected as a Sciences Po's student initiative. I also plan to apply to more international conferences, leadership-enhancing, and women-empowering opportunities worldwide.

Professionally, I would like to become an international criminal  lawyer. Next year, I plan to take a gap year to work in the field of international business law. Then, during my second year of master's, I would like to do an exchange with either Columbia Law School in the Global Business Law and Governance specialisation or with McGill University in the Global Governance Studies specialisation. In parallel to my career as a lawyer, I will pursue my commitment to the reduction of inequalities and the respect of human rights. Thus, I consider becoming a career coach to support and encourage students to achieve their ambitions, to challenge social inequalities, while promoting the values of solidarity and mutual support.