Women make an average of 84 cents per every dollar their male counterparts make.
The nonprofit “Young and Empowered Women” aims to close that gap, all while being dedicated to fostering the next generation of female leaders. The nonprofit offers many mentorship, professional development and networking opportunities that help women advance their economic and social mobility skills.
Over 100 female executives are available to help members navigate through the professional barriers and and overcome challenges.
Veronica Aguilar, founder and chair of Young & Empowered Women, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss the programs efforts and how to get involved.
“That is the focus for us to address here in Arizona. And we are open to women that want to become members in our organization, and we also have a mentor opportunity as well,” Aguilar said.
Closing the wage gap is not an easy feat. Aguilar shared how they are taking a more individualized approach to tackle this issue.
“It is a big thing to work to close, right? And so for us, what we’ve seen, we focus in on our three pillars with young and empowered women. So that is professional development, mentorship and networking,” Aguilar said.
More than 250 members in the organization can participate in bi-monthly programming that combines the three pillars and bring forth what Aguilar calls “economic empowerment”.
“Something else we are seeing with women right now is, you know a lot of the industries, for example with the pandemic right, it was called the ‘She-cession’. We saw a lot of industries that majority of women were employed by, either they lost their job, or they had to quit their job because day care became too expensive. That was actually one of the reasons why Young and Empowered was started,” Aguilar said.
On June 27, Young and Empowered Women will be holding a networking event in Tempe. As a first-generation college student, Aguilar shared why events like these are important.
“A lot of times, first-generation students don’t have access to that social capital. So a big part of what Young and Empowered Women does and what we’re going to be doing at the conference is really expanding their network,” Aguilar said.
