Edhat StaffGirls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara is proud to announce that Lisa Shannon, international human and women’s rights activist, author, and Co-founder and President of Everywoman Everywhere, will be the guest speaker at the 16th Annual Celebration Luncheon. The event, “The Power of One: The Role YOU Can Play to Educate and Empower Girls,” will be held Thursday, September 28 at The Fess Parker Double Tree, from 11:30AM-1:30PM. 
Ms. Shannon will share her inspiring story of one person making a difference in the lives of women and girls. Her key catalyst moment came when watching a Lisa Ling report on the Oprah Show about atrocities women were facing in the Congo in 2005. Her shock and her disbelief that more was not being done to meet the crisis led her to take the next step: founding Run for Congo Women, which was featured in Runner’s World magazine. Her action led to her realization that violence against women and girls is the most widespread human rights violation on earth – and the most accepted – and has propelled her onto the international stage twelve years later where she initiates campaigns in the international women’s movement.
“Humanity has tremendous potential in girls, if they are safe, know their rights, and believe in themselves and their inner moral compasses to move through life as leaders,” says Shannon. “That is what Girls Inc. delivers: a structure for assuring young women from diverse, often marginalized, communities will grow up with a firm grasp of their own potential.”
Lisa’s work has been profiled in multiple appearances in The New York Times, Runner’s World Magazine, Time Magazine, Marie Claire, and O, The Oprah Magazine, as well as on ABC World News Tonight, National Public Radio, CNN International, and Voice of America.
She was selected to the O, The Oprah Magazine’s 2010 Power List, and Shape Magazine’s “2010 Women Who Shape the World.”
Lisa was an Associate and former Fellow of the Carr Center for Human Rights, and a former Gleitsman Fellow with the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Georgetown University.
She is author of award-winning A Thousand Sisters: My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman (Seal Press, 2010) and Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen: An Ordinary Family’s Extraordinary Tale of Love, Loss, and Survival in Congo (Public Affairs, 2015).
Tickets for the 16th Annual Celebration Luncheon are $130 and may be reserved by calling 805-963-4757 or visiting girlsincsb.org. Sponsorship opportunities are still available.
About Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara
Girls Inc. inspires all girls to be strong, smart, and bold, providing more than 140,000 girls across the U.S. and Canada with life-changing experiences and solutions to the unique challenges girls face. The Girls Inc. Experience consists of people, an environment, and programming that, together, empower girls to succeed, overcoming gender, economic, and social barriers to develop leadership and teamwork skills, to set career goals and to adopt healthy lifestyles, nurturing their growth into healthy, educated, independent adults. In 2016 Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara served nearly 1,500 girls through after-school, summer camp, outreach, teen, and gymnastics programs.
