Women + Girls Research Alliance elevates the standard of what research should look like
Established in 2006, the Women + Girls Research Alliance (W+GRA) provides the UNC Charlotte community a space to focus on crucial research and education on women’s issues. Their work focuses on civic and political engagement, economic security and violence against women.
The alliance is a unit of Charlotte’s urbanCORE, which focuses on the challenges preventing women from success. They host events that extend their work and create conversations about the challenges of womanhood in the greater Charlotte area.
“We focus on the challenges here in the Charlotte Metropolitan area that impede the thriving of women and girls,” said Michelle Meggs, executive director at W+GRA. “We look at health and well-being, economics, employment, education, socio-political issues. We look at all of those challenges, and we work through convening.”
Advocating with research
The event expands on Janaka Bowman-Lewis’s, a member of the W+GRA advisory committee, research on Black women’s wellness.
“We do community engagement research, so we work with local nonprofits that help expand their capacity to do the work that they are doing,” said Lewis. “So we are not only engaged in helping faculty to extend and expand their research, but we also help local nonprofits with the work that we do to enhance their work and make it more meaningful.”