Two sister dailies have marked International Women’s Day with front pages celebrating the event.

Both The Star, Sheffield, and the Yorkshire Evening Post ran IWD-related splashes this morning in celebration of the women of its patch.

HTFP reported in January how The Star had launched its first Women of Sheffield awards, and today it dedicated 16 pages of the paper to coverage of the inaugural ceremony, which was held last night.

More than 2,000 copies of today’s edition were also delivered to Sheffield area schools to be used as a learning resource, thanks to funding from the event’s sponsors.

In a piece reflecting on the awards, Star editor Nancy Fielder wrote: “We wanted to inspire everyone with women who not only shone in the past but are doing incredible things right now. They are making a difference not only to individual lives but to our city as a whole.

“We were sent hundreds of incredible stories within days of launching this project.The newspaper has never had a response quite like it.”

Up the road in Leeds, The Star’s JPIMedia sister daily the Yorkshire Evening Post launched a new campaign called #Leedsgirlscan, aimed at getting every woman in the city to pledge to make a difference in their lives or the lives of other girls and women.

Suggestions include pledging to donate sanitary products to help end period poverty, becoming a mentor to another woman or girl, becoming more active, or encouraging someone to take a potentially life-saving smear test.

The YEP also examined a major report shedding light on the biggest health issues facing women and girls in Leeds, and what needs to be done to tackle them.

Editor Hannah Thaxter said: “International Women’s Day gets bigger and bigger every year. This year the theme for IWD is #BalanceforBetter, a call-to-action for driving gender balance across the world.

“This can mean vastly different things to different people, but here in Leeds we believe it is about empowering and supporting women to achieve their personal goals and to be the best, the healthiest and the happiest they can be.”