SOCIETY

CIVIL SOCIETY: 276 PRACTICES


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Initiative

WOMENTORS: Empowerment of young women

WOMENTORS: Empowerment of young women
SUBMITTED FROM:

LAMBRAKIS FOUNDATION

THE VISION

In an ever-changing world where human activity has both solved fundamental problems of the past and created pivotal societal, ecosystem and human imbalances, one thing is certain: the pace of change we are experiencing has never been faster than it is now. These changes entail challenges. Behind every challenge lies an opportunity. The point is that each and every one of us as individuals and all together, as a human species, can recognize, seize and creatively utilize the opportunities that will lead us to a better tomorrow for ourselves and for our children.

At the Lambrakis Foundation, we believe in the unique potential of each person and the exponential power of collective action. We believe that education is a vehicle for individual and collective progress and prosperity and for the formation of just societies, without exclusions. Personal development, when understood as a lifelong process that evolves within and outside of formal educational contexts, can be a response to problems facing humanity. This developmental course cannot but be multifaceted and flexible with possibilities of personalization, depending on the needs and interests of each person and the circumstances around him.

The rapid advancement of technology makes us extremely powerful. Today, more than ever, ethics and life values play a crucial role in ensuring our peace and security.

We envision a sustainable, participatory society, made up of people who live together with mutual respect, solidarity and work together to achieve common goals. We envision a Greece that utilizes its strong cultural and historical foundations, its human potential and its natural resources to shape a modern, progressive and pioneering person. A peaceful world, friendly to the environment and people, a sustainable planet. This is precisely why we work at the Lambrakis Foundation, seeking to contribute through our initiatives and programs, so that every child has equal access to high-level learning opportunities, every young person envisions his or her future in a sound and unhindered way, every adult develops and to make the most of his abilities, for every citizen to enjoy his rights, to meet his responsibilities and to be productively active in society, for every elderly person to "age actively", for every baby born to have hope and perspective.



Objective Action

The aim of the project is to empower young women and create a network of women who will practice lifelong and autonomous advocacy for women's rights. WOMENTORS aims to multifacetedly empower young women through education and capacity building for greater participation, decision-making, power and action to take full control of their lives in relation to their economic activity, public/political space available to them them, harmonizing professional and personal time, ensuring their rights at work and in all areas of life and their health.

The 9,000 women who will participate in the training and empowerment actions are expected to:

  • know their rights and facts about discrimination against women
  • recognize gender stereotypes and overcome them
  • defend their rights, to make use of existing support mechanisms and the relevant legislation
  • claim their professional rights
  • make full use of their abilities and potential for professional advancement
  • they claim equal pay for equal work
  • participate more actively in decision-making centers
  • seek to harmonize personnel with professional time
  • show zero tolerance for violence (emotional, verbal, physical)
  • they take care of their good mental and physical health
  • adopt attitudes of active citizenship, which contributes fruitfully to social progress
  • undertake or participate in initiatives in civil society, which concern local, national or global issues
  • are informed and positioned validly and documented in private and public life (knowledge of the SDGs, Agenda 2030, fight against misinformation, positioning and action with added value)
  • they raise their children free of gender stereotypes
  • advocate for women's needs
  • undertake women empowerment initiatives.

Students who will be informed about gender equality issues are expected to be more aware and not reproduce stereotypes and discrimination.

 

Target Audience

WOMENTORS is aimed at women, aged 18-35, from all over Greece. The only criteria for joining the program is their biological sex and age, and for this reason, 4,700 women of different cultural, socio-economic and educational backgrounds are participating today, during the first year of the program's implementation. A percentage of 5% of them comes from inaccessible mountainous or island areas. Additionally, by showing inspirational video stories for younger women, a much larger number of women of all ages across the country are being empowered as these videos are shared by young women online. Finally, the creation of information and sensitization materials for schools will benefit girls and boys aged 12-18.

According to UN Women, “investing in women's leadership requires a life-cycle approach to empower and support the youngest girls, adolescents, young women and women. Investing in the leadership capacity of young women will not only change their future trajectory, but also that of their communities.” Young women experience double discrimination due to gender and age.

With this in mind, we target young women, most of whom have either not yet entered the labor market and have not created their own families, or are taking their first steps in this field, so that we can utilize their potential for self-employment. activism for equality issues in the future. In addition, compared to older women, these women have an increased learning readiness, since they are usually involved in learning processes (post-secondary, tertiary, professional or otherwise) and are more flexible in negotiating issues related to changing life attitudes, which may need to be done, since young children have an innate tendency to challenge establishments and stereotypes and change the world.

 

Duration

WOMENTORS is funded by EEA Grants under the Active Citizens Fund programme. The initial duration of the program, i.e. the period during which its funding has been secured, is April 2020 to September 2022. However, the Lambrakis Foundation intends to seek additional sources of funding for its continuation.


Description

According to the Gender Equality Index 2019 Greece ranks last in EU28. The pay gap for equal work is high, women’s access to decision-making centers is limited, their access to the labor market is lower than men’s & is realized under worse terms. Responsibilities related to household & family care disproportionately burden women. Violence against women is a problem across Europe. The project involves multi-faceted empowerment of young women through training and capacity building leading to greater participation, decision-making power and transformative action in order to take full control of their lives in relation to their economic/resource base, the public/political arena allowed to them by society, the balance between work – family – personal life,  their health & wellbeing, their equal rights in the labor market and in all life sectors.  

177 young women have been trained as leaders and will offer within 2 years a set of 10 online empowerment seminars for 50 young women each, thus forming a nationwide network of 9,000 18-35 year-old women (5% from remote areas) who will participate in holistic women’s empowerment activities. 23 facilitators with strong empowerment skills will advise and coordinate smaller teams of leaders. 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic all training and empowerment sessions will only be available online during the academic year 2020-21. If public health conditions allow for in-person meetings in 2021-22, the seminars will be implemented as initially planned, in a blended version (combining live and e-learning). In addition, communication with a network of female mentors is facilitated via the 100 mentors platform. Furthermore videos of inspiring personal stories told mainly by women are being created and communicated to 35,000 women of all ages. Moreover, an awareness campaign for 4,000 girls and 4,000 boys aged 12-18 will be raised in schools.


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Impact on Society

From September 2020 until today

  • ​the 23 regional coordinators of the project have been trained in 14 seminars of a total duration of 70 hours.
  • the 177 leaders of the project have been trained in 12 seminars of a total duration of 50 hours and with continuous group - and whenever required individual - empowerment and advisory support from the regional coordinators.
  • each of the 4,700 women has participated in 9 out of a total of 10 planned empowerment seminars, which are interactive and include engaging the women in activities to mobilize their interest, negotiate the issues at hand, consolidate the content of the presentations and apply and develop skills which is sought each time to be cultivated.
  • a total of 1,955 online seminars of an average duration of 3.5 hours have been held to achieve the aforementioned result.
  • 20 video-narratives by mainly women, but also men, have been shown
  • all participants communicate with the scientific team by asking questions about topics of their interest and receiving answers asynchronously
  • Leaders started communicating with mentors through the platform in April, and at the beginning of May this feature is activated for all young women participating in the program.
  • Women from all corners of Greece participate in the program, from all prefectures, but also from remote villages. In addition, Greek women who study or work abroad participate. It is indicated that the same group may include a neuroscientist doing postdoctoral research in San Diego and a young woman who did not finish high school.

In order to measure the impact of the project, questionnaires have been filled out before the start of the program and upon its completion, separately for the leaders and for the participating young women. These questionnaires measure knowledge, skills and attitudes and have been created by Professor of Counseling Psychology, Kalliopi Kounenou and her team. They were granted before the start of the program and will be granted again in June to the 4,700 participants who will complete the series of 10 seminars in June 2021. (The measurement of the leaders, part of whose empowerment is the work they have undertaken in the context of their leadership role, will be done upon the completion of their work, in July 2022.)

Therefore, at this stage we have available the quantitative impact data listed above, but also qualitative data captured in the named statements of young women participating in the program, which were made when, on the occasion of Women's Day, March 8, 2021, we called them to tell us in two sentences their impressions so far (https://www.facebook.com/113214833456688/posts/469621987815969/) about the program. It is noted that at this particular time the young women had attended only 4 and some 5 of the 10 seminars. You can also find more such videos of the participants on the WOMENTORS account on Instagram: Womentors_gr.



Initiative Location

The program is nationwide and offered online. If the pandemic allows it, according to the acad. year 2021-22 the live seminars will be held in 15 cities of Greece, but they will still be offered online for those women who are not in these cities.


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Working with Organization

For the implementation of WOMENTORS, the Lambrakis Foundation collaborates with the organization "Apostoli Anthropos", which specializes in health issues. "Mission Man" has undertaken to develop the content related to women's health issues.


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Workers Participation

The management team of WOMENTORS currently consists of 6 people, who are the team that is constantly and systematically employed in the specific project.

For the development needs of the project, work was assigned to the 9 members of the scientific team, to the 23 regional coordinators of the project and to external collaborators for various needs (indicative, IT, graphic designer, etc.), but also to subcontractor companies (e.g. . for video recording of presentations and video-narratives, for utilizing the 100 mentors platform, where communication with mentors takes place in a specially configured section for WOMENTORS, etc.).

Particularly important is the voluntary contribution of women from various fields of activity (economic, social, political), who, through personal video narratives and/or through mentoring, encourage young women to participate in decision-making centers, to aim high, to be active experimentally, to take initiatives in civil society, manage important difficulties and mistakes, achieve the harmonization of staff with professional time, take care of their health, etc.

If a number of people with a systematic and not occasional contribution to the project had to be determined, these are the 6 people of the management team and the 23 regional coordinators of the project, i.e. a total of 29 people, of which 1 is a volunteer.

Otherwise, it is estimated that a total of approximately 80 people have contributed to the development of WOMENTORS to date, not counting the discrete contribution of subcontractor staff members. The number of these people will increase, as during the 2nd year of the project implementation, other video narratives will be created and mentors will be added to WOMENTORS.


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Benefits for Οrganization

All the results described above are benefits for the Lambrakis Foundation.

In addition, the Foundation developed a sustainable network-based model of multiplicative empowerment and advocacy within this project. The Foundation has long experience in the development of nationwide programs. But it is the first time that a national program is based on systems thinking and operation in the way that WOMENTORS does. The choice to train the leaders, so that having the appropriate means and tools at their disposal, as well as the guidance and advisory support of their coordinator, to develop the empowerment seminars themselves for their peers was bold, but it was planned methodically and today it is proving to be successful. The Lambrakis Foundation is perhaps the first organization in Greece that deals with issues of education and life-long learning and made a move on such a massive scale from the strict observance of the barriers between trainer and trainee, after trusting young women to take responsibility and action during their training.

The goal is for the leaders to continue to be active anonymously on issues of equality. The Foundation intends to continue to be in contact with the nationwide network of at least 9,000 women that will be created within the framework of WOMENTORS, offering them additional empowerment seminars in the context of their lifelong personal development, which within this program is cultivated as a lifestyle.

In this context, the Foundation has created a pan-Hellenic network of young women and leaders, which can be used in the future in its other programs (e.g. for the environment, etc.).

In addition, for the development of its programs up to now the Foundation has usually combined in-person and distance learning. Due to the pandemic, the Foundation has now acquired additional experience and expertise in the development of national programs exclusively at a distance.

Finally, the Lambrakis Foundation is a small organization, whose staff actively participates in the development and implementation of programs, which means that with each program it develops, the expertise of its staff increases.




Connection with Global Goals






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