International Women's Day 2026

Happy International Women’s Day! 

Agenda Alliance’s Chief Executive, Indy Cross, writes about how we at Agenda Alliance have been working to support, convene and advocate for our membership and the women and girls that they work with in the lead up to International Women’s Day, including heading to No.10 Downing Street, and announcing our new Visionaries initiative.

In addition, we are thrilled to officially announce a new initiative – our Visionaries. This is a small group of women in sectors such as technology, finance, media and business, who have pledged to support us philanthropically with their donations, time and ideas to shape our work.

This is the first initiative of its kind at Agenda Alliance, which enables women who have the drive and resources to support their sisters who have been let down or harmed by the systems that are meant to protect them. Our group of Visionaries kicked off in February 2026 with a heartwarming lunch event, where stories were shared, solutions were discussed, and a sisterhood was created. We will be welcoming more women to join us on this journey to power-up our work.

Watch this space, as more information will come out on our website in due course.

Girls and young women

Next week, we are giving our insights and expertise to the Ministry of Justice, as we meet with Minister for Youth Justice and Sentencing, Jake Richards MP, to discuss the needs of girls and young women in the justice system. What we know will shape the work of the newly formed Girls in Youth Justice Advisory Board (GYAB), which was set up following an independent review into girls in youth custody by Susannah Hancock, which we responded to in full. Through our Young Women’s Justice Project, we continue to advocate for gender-, age-, and culturally-informed responses to girls and young women caught up in the criminal justice system, with solutions that prioritise their wellbeing and rehabilitation over punishment and shame.

In addition, we are proud to have teamed-up with Social Finance, Abianda and the Mayor’s Office for Policing in Crime in London (MOPAC), to distribute over £600,000 to organisations and community groups working with girls and young women affected by or at risk of violence and exploitation. This funding will support the vital work that so many incredible organisations and individuals are doing across London to keep girls and young women safe, enabling them to live secure, fulfilling lives. We will be working with the upcoming cohort of grantees to support them to co-produce their initiatives with girls and young women with lived experience of violence and exploitation, and to create a co-design environment that is safe, inclusive and meaningful. We know that this is what works: women and girls with lived experience of multiple unmet needs are best placed to design and deliver services that affect them.

Information on the cohort of grantees will be released later in the month, so keep an eye on our website for updates.

Finally, this International Women’s Day, I want to thank the Agenda Alliance team, Trustees and supporters, for consistently giving so much care and passion to our work.

We’ve achieved so much since the last International Women’s Day, but there’s still so much left to do, and I can’t wait to continue to update you on all of the strides we’re making as an alliance to challenge the sharpest forms of marginalisation that women and girls across our country are facing.

In solidarity,

Indy