NEW SOCIAL IMAGES OF RURAL WOMEN THE TRANSNATIONAL COOPERATION

In the frame of the second round of the EQUAL Initiative.. our four national Development Partnerships from Estonia “Establishment and implementation of farmers relief service” Italy “WEBFEM Web For Empowerment” Slovakia “By gender research towards employment equality in the conditions of mountain rural areas of Slovakia” Spain “Cherries for equality” agreed to produce among other what we have called an Album of New Social Images of Rural Women “New Social Images of Rural Women”

ESTONIA

ITALY

SLOVAKIA

SPAIN

Why?

 The social, economic and cultural changes undergone by our societies in the last decade, marked among other by employment challenges, the surge of information and communication technologies and gender issues, have had a particular, and more or less positive, impact on the rural world.

 Women play a vital role, not always visible, not always acknowledged by society as a whole, in society’s development, and particularly so in rural areas.  Their opportunities, activities, roles and positions are changing, generating what we are trying to identify as “New Social Images”

Our aim is  to disseminate these new images  to make them visible, in order to foster and transfer new models leading to more sustainable and equal employment and participation opportunities in the rural areas  to contribute to deconstruct stereotypes that act as barriers against higher levels of equality and equity between women and men

What we have in common...  We work in our national projects in marginal rural territories And in these, we share two basic underlying problems:  The lack of equal opportunities regarding the access of some sections of their population (be it rural native women, migrant women or farmers in general) to: employment economic activities decision-taking positions  The existence of structures and models leading to horizontal and vertical segregation particularly discriminating rural women, who lack the skills the qualifications the empowerment the visibility needed to fully participate as key agents of rural development

The objectives of the NSIRW project  To promote new images of rural women  To remove various common stereotypes  To encourage new models that lead towards a situation of effective parity between men and women at work and in their participation in the social life of rural areas

Here we are..  We set up a Steering Committee consisting of 2-3 representatives of each national partnership, most of whom had already met and worked together during the planning stage How we have worked together in order to achieve the principal objectives of our project?

 Over the 23-month period of the project (from July 2005 to May 2007) the committee has met 5 times on the occasion of as many Transnational Meetings

Together we have…  analysed and compared the methods and processes developed within the national projects  shared our experiences and the difficulties encountered, as well as the knowledge acquired in the area

We have focused on:  research practices aimed at identifying specific roles, needs and expectations of the women who live and/or work in rural areas  training given to women in rural areas, with particular attention to those innovative measures put into effect to enable women to overcome the obstacles that they generally encounter in seeking access to training in rural areas (use of ICT instruments, conciliation services)  other solutions tried out in various areas, such as 1. relief service 2. multifunctional agriculture 3. instruments for promoting gender mainstreaming in rural areas 4. approaches and methods for promoting empowerment and leadership for rural women

Fundamental stages in this programme were the 5 Transnational Meetings  during 4 of which, alongside the steering committee meetings, there were also: workshops on particular themes public seminars technical visits in which many representatives of the 4 national partnerships also took part, and which were the invaluable source of mutual knowledge and benefit

 July 2005 Estonia Meeting, Workshop “Farmers Replacement Service and Women in Multifunctional Agriculture”, technical visits  December 2005 Italy Meeting  June 2006 Spain Meeting, Workshop “Key aspects to promote women’s empowerment in the rural areas”, technical visits  December 2006 Italy Meeting, public seminar “Multifunctional experiences: from past to present”, technical visits  May 2007 Slovakia Meeting, public seminar “New social image of rural women”, technical visits

Other important steps in the transnational programme were the study visits of the beneficiaries of the Estonian, Italian and Spanish projects

 April 2006 visit by 9 women and 14 men beneficiaries of the Estonian project to Italy  May 2006 visit by 15 women beneficiaries of the Italian project to Spain  September 2006 visit by 19 women beneficiaries of the Spanish project and technical staff to Italy  May 2007 visit by 18 women and 5 men beneficiaries of the Estonian project to Spain

 In all, around 60 women and 19 men beneficiaries have taken part: for 8 of them, this was the first business trip that they had made abroad and for 5 of them the first journey abroad in their life

It was a wonderful experience of work and we hope we can continue to work together in the future!

Thank you for your attention!