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Description
According to the Gender Equality Index 2017 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 & capacity building leading to greater participation, decision-making power & 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 & in all life sectors. 177 female students will be trained as leaders & will organize within 2 years a set of 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 in 12 cities around Greece. 25 female facilitators with strong empowerment skills will advise & coordinate them at regional level. All training will be blended (live & e-learning). Live teleconference with female mentors will be provided during the seminars. Videos of inspiring positive female models will be created & communicated to 35,000 women of all ages. Awareness & empowerment of 4,000 girls & 4,000 boys aged 12-18 will be raised in schools.
Summary of project results
The project aimed at the multi-faceted empowerment of young women through training & capacity building leading to greater participation, decision-making power & 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 & in all life sectors.
WOMENTORS offers multifaceted empowerment to women aged 18-35, by training them and building their capacity for equal and full participation in decision-making, power and action, that enable full control of their economic activity, the public/political space they occupy, the harmonization of work with their personal time, the safeguarding of their rights at work and in all areas of their life, and their health. The empowerment program offers a) empowerment seminars, b) storytelling by women (and men) who inspire the young and break stereotypes, c) mentoring and d) networking. The empowerment seminars are WOMENTORS’ main pilar and are offered either in 4 in-person full-day meetings or in 9 4-hour online interactive seminars, covering a wide span of topics. Within the 4-year implementation period of WOMENTORS (2020-24), 11,100 young women from all over Greece have taken the full (35 hours) course of seminars. Those women have been empowered in many different areas. They worked on their personal and social skills, such as self-esteem, goal setting -and pursuing-, resilience, empathy, communication, collaboration, negotiation, team-management, leadership and assertiveness. They addressed gender stereotypes in their environment and were facilitated to diagnose their own stereotypes and seek ways to overcome them and not reproduce them; they worked on the harmonization of work and personal time, and they were informed on how to safeguard their health. They were advised on how to build their professional profile and their personal brand, how to plan and pursue a career by aiming high, overcoming barriers and breaking the glass ceiling, how to participate in decision-making by assuming leadership roles, by participating in politics and by addressing local and global challenges as active citizens. In addition, they worked on their entrepreneurial skills, they were informed about the Greek start-ups ecosystem and about opportunities to start their own business. Furthermore, all participating women attended a seminar on violence against women and on harassment; additionally, they were informed about the legal framework on gender equality issues and on protecting the rights of women, and the existing support services and providers.
WOMENTORS’ quality has been acknowledged by H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, who placed the program under her auspices. In addition, WOMENTORS was granted the Gold Award at the 2021 Education Leaders Awards and received a Bravo Award by the Quality Net Foundation.
Supplementary to the above-mentioned number of women, an additional 4.174 attended part of the seminars (not the full series), while a total of 53.079 were empowered through storytelling videos. Moreover, 262 young women who followed a 2.5 year-leadership-training track, led and empowered each a group of 25 peers per year (=50 young women in 2 years), under the support and supervision of a mentor. WOMENTORS’ operation was based on an innovative, multiplier-effect empowerment model. This model is described within the “Empowerment Manual” that was created and is available online in Greek language.
Apart from empowering women aged 18-35, WOMENTORS also created an educational program titled “Let’s swap places!”, that aims at informing all secondary education students on gender stereotypes and on existing gender inequalities in Greece and at empowering them to think, behave and act in ways that foster equality. The program offers a Teacher’s Manual and training seminars to all participating teachers. It has been incorporated in the school curriculum as an elective skills-lab for 7-9th graders and has been approved by the Ministry of Education to be further implemented during flexible school hours for 7-12th grade students, thereby reaching an even greater number of beneficiaries than registered by the Lambrakis Foundation. Since 2021, 20.171 students from 337 schools located all over Greece have attended the “Let’s swap places!” labs and 876 teachers were trained.