At AFRICaide and 4W Women and Well-being Initiative’s 11th annual International Women’s Day on Saturday, March 8, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., at Christ Presbyterian Church on Madison’s East Side, attendees will have the opportunity to participate in discussions with a large group of community members dedicated to improving conditions for women locally, nationally, and internationally.
“We will gather to celebrate women in all circles and from all backgrounds. It’s a day of advocacy and activism because we have to continue to address gender inequalities,” Emilie Songolo, the founder of AFRICaide and an organizer of AFRICaide/4W’s International Women’s Day, tells Madison365. “As women, we cannot lay low. We have so much work to do and we will continue to work. The theme this year for us is ‘Still we rise: leading with perseverance, purpose and passion.'”
March 8th is International Women’s Day and women from all walks of life will spend a day celebrating women and sisterhood all around the world. The global theme for International Women’s Day is “Accelerate Action.”
“The work that we have to continue doing, we have to be determined as ever,” Songolo says. “It cannot be done individually. It’s time for more collaboration, more support, more understanding, and for us to really think about the big picture and what is at stake. As women, when we pull together, we get results.
“There are a lot of advances that have taken place over the years thanks to the work that our female predecessors have done in terms of women’s rights … and women’s rights are human rights,” she adds. “But we have so much more work to do.”
This will be the 11th year that AFRICaide and 4W Women and Well-being Initiative will partner to host International Women’s Day. Saturday’s event will begin in the morning with a centering activity led by Mynda Lynn, owner of Variations Dance Studio & Let the Healing Begin. AFRICaide/4W International Women’s Day will have morning engagement sessions, hands-on activities, lunch and networking, and music and movement.
An expert panel, titled “Women’s Health and Wellbeing,” will feature panelists Jacquelyn Hunt, Myra McNair, Rachel Byington, Sidney Moore and Serena Cisneros.
The keynote speaker will be Lilada Gee, a Madison-area artist who is also the founder of Lilada’s Livingroom and Black Women Heal, organizations that help women and girls deal with the trauma of abuse.
“We have an amazing speaker who is a great leader in our community and we have such a wonderful panel for this event,” Songolo says. “Lilada (Gee) is not just a leader and changemaker in our community, but she goes beyond Wisconsin and beyond even our country … she’s worldwide.
“I have heard her speak many times publicly, and she’s one of the most transparent women that I know,” Songolo continues. “She has created this movement to lift girls and inspire all of us. And I think that’s why I thought that if she’s available, she would be a wonderful keynote…I’m really looking forward to hearing her speak.”
Lori DiPrete Brown, director of 4W Women and Well-being Initiative at UW-Madison, started out as a speaker at the event in its first few years and soon signed her organization on to be a co-host.
“It’s such a great community-driven event,” Brown tells Madison365. “And there’s just many good memories being in community at this event. Over the years, we’ve all really gotten to know each other just from this event. We can worry a lot about how to build community, but it just naturally happens by being friends and sharing life together. And that has really happened here at this event.
“I think the other thing I really love about this event is being around this big group of women from all over the world, including the U.S., and there are these few hours where there is this big country of women that are working across all kinds of differences and there is so much love,” Brown adds. “If fills our wells for the year when we do the work that we do.”
A highlight of the annual AFRICaide/4W International Women’s Day event is always the presentation of the Trailblazer Awards to women in the community who are doing outstanding things. The 2025 Trailblazer Award recipients will be presented to Anu Ebbe, T.R. Williams, Angela Boynton, Angela Byars-Winston and Miriam Nunez.
“I really love it each year when we honor women with the Trailblazer Awards. These are women that a lot of people may not even know but their work has been so impactful and so many people have benefited from their work,” Songolo says. 
Women are encouraged to wear purple at Saturday’s International Women’s Day event. The day historically ends with beautiful group photos of all the women together.
“I’m looking forward to seeing women there of all ages,” Songolo says. “I know that people who will be there on Saturday will leave the event inspired and they will leave transformed by the keynote speaker, by the panel, by all of the people attending the event. I always tell people, ‘You don’t want to miss this!’”
Brown adds that she is looking forward to seeing some women that she has seen at this event from years past, but also some new women she has never seen before.
“I’m looking forward to listening for the new kinds of leadership and ideas that we need to be having in this time,” Brown says. “I feel like it’s out there, and you don’t know where the leadership is going to come from, and it might come from the young people, or it might come from the elders, or it might come from those two at a table, and it might come in Swahili or Spanish or English or Chinese.
“I enjoy just listening for wisdom and looking for people to support and follow and befriend in this super challenging time,” she adds.
