During the holidays, we had the incredible opportunity of being selected to take part in the GirlBoss Edge: Law, Policy and Government career acceleration programme. Throughout this 10 day course we learned valuable skills and advice from some of New Zealand’s most inspirational women. We participated in facebook lives with five women, including Rez Gardi, who arrived in New Zealand as a child refugee and has ended up working as an international lawyer on the ISIS case following her recent graduation from Harvard University. As well as participating in these Facebook lives, we also had the chance to receive personal mentoring sessions from top NZ lawyers and government officials. This was a chance to ask any specific questions we had regarding the different fields of work and was extremely useful in helping us to develop our own personal goals. The course also provided us with online modules surrounding topics such as networking and interviewing. Through the course, which was partaken by 600 high school-aged girls, we got to interact with and meet many other young girls with similar interests and goals as us. Overall, this experience has been both useful and inspirational, and we know that many of the things we learned will help us both now and in the future.

Annabel Rhodes and Madi Lockyer, Year 13