It's a Wrap with the amazing Illuminate x Durham's conference

Hi everyone! My name is Zahra Moosavi and I am a student in Grade 10 at Dunbarton High School. Today, I had the pleasure to attend Illuminate x Durham’s The Future of Women in Leadership and STEM’s event. It was truly an honor to have the opportunity to participate this year and I had learned and gained so much information and inspirations. Today’s conference was truly the best, from all the lessons I learned from each and every speaker and the workshops. I loved how Ms. Ilona spoke about how youth are needed to step up and to look at experiences as the ability to make an impact and contribute. This was a very important topic to focus on as the youth does need to step up and help make an impact. I love science and Ms. Cecile made me love it even more with her amazing and inspiring information about magnetotactic bacteria, fly embryonic development, and her inspiring talk about words of others can help find words for your own experience and help understand your own experience, and “Develop your own values. Do not let others define what success is for you”. Everyday we learn something new and today I had learned about imposter syndrome by Ms. Mackenzie which I think is really important to know about as it happens to many of us and we should know if it's helping us or not because it may be affecting us we may not be noticing it. We also need to notice that we need to help and prioritize our human rights as Ms. Andrea said “Think of ways you can shine spotlight on discrimination” We had amazing tips and websites given by the speakers to help in choosing universities and our career. Each and every team had done an incredible job and I was really shocked with how a topic was answered in so many different and creative ways. This was my favorite part of the conference and it truly showed that everyone is so talented and can do so many things in the future and in their goal.

I would like to say thank you for all the hard work each and everyone has put in and all the amazing workshops, conferences, power points, and activities you put in making this amazing event. I had an amazing experience and I will definitely participate again.