Today, ahead of International Women’s Day, YouTube has announced two new programs to continue championing female voices on YouTube. The first is a new, year-long partnership with the United Nations that appoints top YouTube female creators as the very first Change Ambassadors for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Action campaign. The second is a global production program across the YouTube Spaces that puts women both in front of and behind the camera.
Ingrid Nilsen, Jackie Aina, Yuya, Taty Ferreira, Hayla Ghazal, Louise Pentland, and Chika Yoshida have been appointed as Change Ambassadors – the first group of women on YouTube to join the U.N. in advocating for gender equality as part of U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. This group of women creators will work with the U.N. to inspire and activate their global fan communities as well as women and girls around the world.
And via the platform’s new global YouTube Spaces program, in an effort to create new video works that put women voices in front of and behind the camera, across our YouTube Spaces in Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, New York, Sao Paulo, and Berlin, a group of women creators attended workshops and filmed over 50 videos on sets constructed specifically for this program. To help drive an atmosphere of collaboration throughout the program, six women creators, including Anna Akana (U.S.), Alexys Fleming (U.S.), Julia Tolezano (Brazil), Em Ford (U.K.), Nilam Farooq (Germany) and Kuma Miki (Japan) acted as Creative Directors in their respective Spaces, helping mentor other creators who also participated in the global video shoots.
From tributes honoring historical female leaders and original scripted content, to discussions about women in the workforce and other women’s issues, these new videos will begin rolling out today on the YouTube Spaces channel, as well as the creators’ own channels.
YouTube hopes that these new programs will inspire even more women to find their voices, create their own roles, scripts and stories, and advocate for the issues they care about.
Promo below: