Kim Darby: The future is female

Kim’s magnetic positivity is infectious. A guiding light for tweenage girls on the cusp of womanhood, she embraces all it means to be a woman in today’s society.

What is Yaya Sisterhood is and how did it came about?

Yaya Sisterhood is a monthly workshop I run for girls aged eight to 12. We explore topics like body positivity, social media safety, healthy friendships and nutrition. It’s all held in a circle setting, and we share a talking bowl around. It’s set up to be a safe and intimate space for girls. It came about having conversations with my children, where they were expressing their frustrations about friendships, their confidence levels with their body and social media things.

I want girls out there to understand who you are right now is exactly who you need to be. You stand up and stand out as yourself, right?

The language I use in the workshops, and through the branding is tools. We have a tool belt, let’s add to that tool belt, which is how I structured the workshops. So the tool we might be learning in this workshop is affirmations. Or how to have honest conversations and communications.

How important is your support network to you?

I could not shout it any louder, how 100% essential it is to have that support network of “me too’s”, the “you go girl”, and the “you’re not alone”. I know this isn’t everybody’s flavour of jam when it comes to business, but I’ve been honest from the beginning and shared every step. Every time I came across a new resource, I’d share it straight away. If I hadn’t seen other people being honest about their journeys and having those me-too moments, I don’t know how far along my journey I’d be. Because I’d be stuck wallowing in my own space, with self-doubt and anxiety.

And it starts to foster this positive space. Positivity encourages positivity like realness also fosters realness. It’s 6-degrees of separation by business, right? It’s like a personal development journey that coincides with business.

It serves as a space that believes everyone has a story worth sharing; a story that someone else needs to hear, a story that could be the very ‘AHA’ moment someone needed to make their next bold move, a story that could heal, a story that encourages belly laughs and knee slaps, a story that leaves a lasting impression of ‘I can do this, because I am not alone’.

What conversations do you feel you’ll be having with some of these girls about what’s been happening over the last few months?

You’re not your mum’s eldest daughter, who is her helper. You’re not the grumpy big sister. This is your space to be without the labels, and everybody’s equal. And now we’re back here all of that stuff doesn’t exist because they would have had this quick injection back to school post-COVID and probably haven’t had time to recalibrate into who I am. They’ve had to shift from homeschool life back into, “Oh, wait, I’m that girl again”. I’m the academic girl, or I’m the tomboy girl.

How have you branded what you do differently in your industry?

Sticking to what is me. I make sure this is throughout my copy, I’m not there to educate on a particular topic. I’m there to facilitate a space that is safe and open, where we can explore. So within my branding, I’ve kept it as me. What you see on social media, the way I talk, the way I show up on stories or a selfie, a branding shoot is what you meet. The fact these young girls are going to have a mindset skillset to go out into the real world. Seriously, the future is female true? I think what happened early on in the Yaya, building phase, I had set up my initial first workshop and to myself and thought, okay, I’m going to do this. Did it and it generated a lot of interest and a lot of success with great testimonials. And then I did nothing for eight months because I thought I need my logo to be perfect. I need my grid to be perfect. I need to be perfect. I need a blow dryer, and I need power suits, and I need everything to be shiny.

“The future is female. And I’m not sorry about it.”

And I was basing that off the comparison of other successful, youth wellness and development workshops and businesswomen thinking the word business meant a suit and blow-dried hair. Let’s give those parts of me a chance to shine and build those parts up, which then translates into the circle space with the girls. Everything that gets shared, explored, discussed and communicated in those circles is 100% what I feel you would have experienced as a child, I would have experienced as a child and what we all would have needed as children. So 100%, the future is female. And I’m not sorry about it.

want to hear more?

Listen to Kim’s podcast now>>> https://brandyoumagazine.com.au/issue-one/kim-darby/#podcast