The Shona Project

The Shona Project’s Shine Festival

Four Irish youth radio stations came together to help stage and promote an online festival inspiring and empowering young women

ocial entrepreneur Tammy

SDarcy set up The Shona Project to inspire young women and help girls navigate through life. Gabrielle Cummins, CEO of Beat 102-103 radio station, has been involved in working with The Shona Project for several years, and recalls the fi rst festival, for an audience of 150 girls in Waterford City library: “It was called Rise, so the obvious step the next year was to call the next one Shine.” That Shine Festival took place in WIT Arena and hosted 1,000 girls who arrived from all over the Southeast. Then COVID-19 hit and the most recent festival moved online— opening it up to a much larger audience from all over the country.

Presenter Trish Archer who hosted the virtual Shine Heroes Stage live from the Broadcast Centre in Waterford

Tammy Darcy, Founder of The Shona Project with Gabrielle Cummins CEO Beat 102-103

Cummins invited youth radio radio stations from every corner of the country—Spin, Spin Southwest and iRadio—to collaborate with Beat 102-103 in supporting the online Shine festival. “Lifestyle Sports also came on board and were delighted to be involved as our main sponsor because they are focused on empowering girls, so it was a really strong fi t,” notes Cummins.

The festival ran over 3 days, with over 80 inspiring women speakers—on topics such as mental health, mindset, career, diversity, individuality, the arts, sports, social issues, and sustainability—including Vicky Phelan, Laura Whitmore, Holly Cairns, Evanna Lynch, and many more. Taking the festival online allowed the team pull in big names, who may not have been able to make it to an in-person event.

“The impact was bigger than we expected: 40,000 people registered for it and all of the content over the three days was viewed over 1 million times,” Cummins notes. SHINE HEROES The festival feeling was carried through online with different stages. One very special stage was the Shine Heroes Stage, which hosted girls who had been nominated by peers, friends and family as inspiring young women.

“These are eight girls who don’t shout about what they do, they are just quietly getting on with their day, but doing amazing, wonderful things in their community, or they might have had to battle a personal challenge that was really diffi cult for them. They were amazing and it was lovely to be able to shine a spotlight on these girls.

“I really hope that festivals like Shine, and the amazing work that The Shona Project does right across the year, highlight the importance of empowering girls from a very young age. It will hopefully give girls the skills and confi dence so that when they come into the workplace, they will realise their worth, and realise that they are entitled to be shouting for equal pay, equal opportunities and everything that should be coming their way.”