Vision 2020’s 116 women leaders are back in their home states ready to begin the decade-long initiative to advance women’s equality and leadership.

Following three days of discussions and debate in Philadelphia, the Vision 2020 delegates generated hundreds of ideas to advance women’s leadership and achieve equality by the year 2020.

“Vision 2020 and its delegates are now off and running united by one goal,” said Lynn Yeakel, co-chair of Vision 2020, a national initiative of the Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership at Drexel University College of Medicine.

Equality is a measure of our democracy. Yet women, who make up 51 percent of the population, represent only 18 percent of top leaders in the United States. The national and visionary delegates from all 50 states are committed to giving more women a voice in government, media, education and business.

Following the model of the Continental Congress, these 21st Century patriots gathered in Philadelphia on Oct. 21-22. There, just two blocks from where 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence 234 years ago, these 116 women signed the Declaration of Equality. They pledged to return to their home states and work to realize the goal of greater women’s leadership. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, presided over the signing at the National Constitution Center.

The extraordinary women leaders from across the United States will be creating action projects and breaking down barriers to leadership in their home states. They will gather again in 2011 to share ideas and successes in their advocacy.

“Like any movement, Vision 2020 will not be neat and it won’t be tidy,” Vision 2020 co-chair Rosemarie B. Greco told an auditorium of 116 women leaders. “But it will change the way women see themselves and the way the world sees them.”

The national and visionary delegates will serve for the next three years. There are two national delegates from each of the 50 states, plus Washington, D.C. Visionary delegates are women with national influence.