BELA Women's Symposium 2025 - BELA's Renaissance: The Ultimate Gathering

Brooklyn Emerging Leaders Academy (BELA) Charter School is an all-girls high school located in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, with a mission to empower each young woman to be the best version of herself. You can learn more about us at BELA here.

It is our pleasure to extend to you an invitation to participate in the BELA High School’s Annual Women’s Symposium, which will be held IN PERSON this year. BELA’s Women's Symposium is an event that brings together over 100 women of distinction from all industries and cultural backgrounds to engage in intimate conversations with BELA scholars, allowing you to share in your career journey, inclusive of all of the triumphs and challenges that have contributed to your development.

The Women’s Symposium Committee is pleased to announce our 2025 theme is “BELA’s Renaissance: The Ultimate Gathering”. Paying homage to the gathering that ignited the Harlem Renaissance over 100 years ago, we invite creators, dreamers, activists, healers, and professionals from all walks of life to gather together with our student leaders in the name of the creativity, hope, and brilliance that we all possess. Together, we will spend the day discussing what ignites our professional journey and what keeps us dreaming - for ourselves, for our communities, for our world.

The event will take place IN PERSON at our school on Friday, March, 28th 2025, from 9am EST until 1:00 p.m. EST. An optional adult networking event will follow. Throughout the day, panelists will participate in curated discussions, helping students explore conventional and unconventional options in career-based workshops, and engage in insightful conversations. In the past, the Symposium has welcomed a wonderfully diverse panel of professionals and sponsors, from companies like CBS, NYPD, Teen Vogue, Google, IBM, Gap Inc, Brooklyn Borough President’s Office, and Goldman Sachs, to name a few.

Would you consider being a panelist for the day? Would your company consider joining us for a panel for the day? If so, please bring an artifact that brings you inspiration in your professional life, including a poem, playbill, book, picture, recipe, drawing, ballet shoes, religious text, or song to share with our students.

Panelists are asked to commit to one of the following timeframes:

Opening Keynote Assembly (9:15am-9:45am EST)

Panel Session #1 (10:00am-11:00am EST)

Networking Lunch (11am-11:40am)

Panel Session #2 (11:45 am-12:35 pm EST)Closing Sisterhood Circle (12:40pm-1pm EST)

All Day -Including both panels (9am-1pm EST)

We know this gathering will be lifted by your energy and strength— and we truly hope you accept our invitation. Please confirm that you are able to participate by completing your registration form no later than Friday, March 7th. You can email Camile at [email protected] with further questions or interest.

Lastly, we hope you will invite a colleague to join - there’s power in numbers! If you have a friend or colleague you think would be a good fit for this event, please share this link.

Thank you for your consideration and support of our school community!

Best,

BELA Women’s Symposium Committee 2025

Host or Publisher For more information, contact Camile Gayle at [email protected] or 347.491.2497