A series of motivational events across the county marked International Women’s Day on Tuesday March 8.

Organised by Monmouthshire County Council the events were reinforced by a social media campaign to nominate inspirational and influential females.

The county’s communities joined the celebrations in the council’s community hubs where staff highlighted books about great women in history and encouraged people to read literature by inspiring female authors.

In Abergavenny, senior information officer Julie Warburton and library officer Claire Cross joined in the spirit by dressing as suffragettes while some council staff wore purple - the traditional colour of the suffragette movement - pledging a pound to support Abergavenny-based charity Love Zimbabwe, which works directly with the Chinamhora community, near Harare to combat extreme poverty.

A major part of the celebrations was a seminar at Caldicot School attended by 170 GCSE and A Level students. The session entitled: ‘Empowering Women in the Workplace’ featured four female speakers and centred on building and empowering future leaders.

Among them was Rachel Jowitt, head of Monmouthshire’s Waste and Recycling Service who leads a team of 180 of whom only 12 are female.

Another was Dr Ami Jones of the Wales Air Ambulance who shared her stories about the importance of leadership and clarity of roles heading teams for the charity together with her time saving lives while serving with the Army in Afghanistan.

The social media campaign linked to the celebrations asks people to nominate the most inspirational and influential female in their lives by uploading images and text onto Twitter (@monmouthshirecc) and the council’s Facebook page - the Twitter hashtag is #PledgeForParity. The council will also employ its social media accounts to relate the stories of Monmouthshire’s many women who are making a difference in the Monmouthshire community every day.