Women Transforming Cities International Society

Published purpose

Through this 34-month systemic change project, Women Transforming Cities International Society (WTC) will scale the Creating Women Friendly Cities program to advance women's representation in leadership and decision-making roles. It will scale to new communities across British Columbia, prioritizing participation from the most civically underrepresented communities, including women who are Indigenous, Black, racialized, newcomers, 2SLGBTQI+, youth, low-income and/or disabled, and scaling to a higher decision-making body within municipalities. It will address the systemic underrepresentation of women in local government and democratic processes, rebalancing the distribution of power and ensuring women have a voice at decision-making tables by overcoming key barriers including lack of local government knowledge, lack of civic participation tools and resources, lack of mentorship opportunities and networks, and the lack of elected leader support to enact gender-equitable policies. To do so, the project will deliver civic literacy and skill-building workshops and toolkits for grassroots women’s civic empowerment; implement a mentorship program to deepen civic skills; and create and share new resources for municipalities to remove barriers and change policies and systems for gender-equity and women's representation. With the supplemental funds and extension provided in early 2026, Women Transforming Cities will advance local women’s civic leadership and systems-change for gender-equitable municipal policies and systems through: partnering with community organizations to deliver additional targeted civic skill-building workshops and new women’s voter mobilization workshops; conducting new community engagement dialogues for women and gender-diverse communities’ policy priority-setting; hosting an All-Candidates Forum on women’s equity and gender-transformative policy; and convening new gender justice networks in overlooked BC municipalities. Through this they will further advance gender equality.