When Worldwide Audiovisual Women Association was born in 2017, it was difficult to imagine the success our organization would achieve in no time. At that time, a group of women decided to join together and start working on a project to unify executives from the audiovisual world.
Liliam Hernández, Cecilia Gómez de la Torre and Gema López challenged even their own convictions and faced all adversities with positivism and perseverance to turn that small wish into a great reality.
Cecilia Gómez de la Torre commented when we asked her about WAWA.
“Almost four years ago, when we founded WAWA, we had many dreams and aspirations that have been realized today. We wanted to be a professional and friendly meeting point for women in the industry, to empower them, to have a space to visualize and enhance our knowledge; celebrate the journey, as we have done by recognizing the woman of the year, and above all, we wanted to generate unity and connectivity.”
Today, WAWA is a reference in the audiovisual world and has extended its influence on more than 25 countries through all its affiliates and representatives.
After becoming a non-profit organization, WAWA incorporated a great qualified number of women to the Board of Directors’ organization who work to create interactive spaces for businesses.
The pandemic that stopped the world was a motivator agent to create the motto “Proactive in the Face of Adversity” and the flag to WAWA’s members to move on despite the difficult times the world faces.
Under this motto, WAWA activated the networks and summoned associates and non-associates to become part of different activities like Open Mics, Master Classes along with Lifetime Network, the start of its great production “Mujeres extraordinarias” and the launching of its first contest “Equality Shorts.
The enthusiasm and diligence involved in all the activities of the organization demonstrate the winning and excellence spirit that is breathed in the halls of ZOOM, which has become our organization headquarters.
Technology has helped us achieved this beautiful task at the right time.
WAWA’s mission is just starting because there are a lot of ideas and initiatives brewing to open new business roads and learning spaces to all women in the world of distribution and production of content.
Roxana Rotundo, WAWA’s Chairwoman who has become one of our organization’s main driving force stated the following: “I have to confess that I’m impressed with the resilience of many women in this group. Since this pandemic surprised us, we came together to continue with our plans with the tools available to us. And we have achieved everything with a lot of effort.”
We just have to look back a few months and realize that a firm determination with a true purpose is what we need to break any type of resistance or obstacle, specially a devastating pandemic that we still face.
That’s how Lilliam Hernández, one of our founder members sees it.
“The most challenging thing for us has been to build a team of professionals to conform the Board of Directors to work on new projects, for example Mujeres Extraordinarias. In a way, due to the pandemic we can make all the meetings online and the number of associates have increased. During the pandemic we have increased the number of registrations 100%. We thank the members of the Board for putting their efforts to make this a success”.
The road still continues, but this organization that was born by the goodwill of fighting women with great vision for business does not stay behind.
It became stronger and looked for mechanisms to stay and expand despite the pandemic. It’s expanding stronger now with strategic alliances with important institutions in the cinema and television industry and invites all women in the industry that want to grow, learn and bring knowledge to be part of our team to do business and strengthen contact networks.
In WAWA we open doors and we connect with all our associates from our heart, but strong and with determination.
María Elena Useche
