In recent years, the world has seen an incredible amount of breakthroughs for women. With all of the programs and scholarships out there encouraging women to stay in school and work, it seems that most women nowadays are succeeding in their goals of becoming more present in society.
Yet, while the female population achiever these breakthroughs in fields such as politics and STEM, there is a field in which there remains very limited female presence. The business field has seen a significant drop in the amount of women workers and executives. In fact, in 2019 alone, the amount of women executives has dropped to five percent.
Originating as a simple group project for the school’s business program, DECA, seniors Rachel Feldman and Hayley Lunn decided to look at this issue and introduce the Female Leadership In Power (FLIP) program to middle school girls. The idea of the program was to introduce business concepts the two learned in high school to girls at a younger age.
“We really wish that we had learned the business skills from DECA at a younger age so that’s why we gave them a different and easier curriculum than we had,” Lunn said.
With this goal in mind, at the beginning of the semester Feldman and Lunn gathered a group of sixth grade girls from Madea Creek Middle School that they would meet with every Friday afternoon for five to six weeks. During these weeks, they would do fun activities and games that communicated important ideas about business and leadership that are essential for entrepreneurs and executives to know.
For instance, in order to exemplify the idea of marketing, Feldman and Lunn played a musical game with the girls. During this game, various songs are played for the group to show the girls how they immediately recognize them and associate them with certain companies as well as to show how music has a power over decision making.
As part of the DECA project, Feldman and Lunn even had the opportunity to introduce the FLIP program to business owners and the mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, at the Valley Industry Conference Association (VICA) conference.
FLIP has since grown as a result of the dedication and desire for growth that has accumulated in the DECA program.
“Since it is a chapter campaign project, we had the entire DECA chapter help us and we reflected over all the projects they did. We hope to pass it down to them so we can expand even more,” Lunn said.
Lunn even stated that they had noticed that their projects had left an impact on the girls, leaving them with a desire to do more activities and learn more business skills.
“In the end they were getting a competitive drive and wanted to better their presentation skills so they can beat the next person. They also felt they needed to learn how to work with their teammates in order to effectively execute certain projects,” Lunn said.
Through advertising on their official Instagram page, maintaining a website, making fliers, and attending conferences, Lunn and Feldman have no intention of slowing down with the FLIP program. They intend to continue teaching business skills to young girls with a drive for leadership and learning.
The Plaid Press 