Young Women Leaders Erasmus Project

Project Title

Young Women Leaders

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Gender equality / equal opportunities; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

According to Eurostat, 54% of all tertiary students in the EU are women, but paradoxically the percentage of women holding a decision-making position is significantly lower: only 37% of the Members of the European Parliament are women, 6.3% of CEO positions in major publicly listed companies in the EU are women.
In this regard, Young Women Leaders targets a number of problem areas defined in the EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025, envisaging actions aimed to promote civic engagement and foster leadership skills among young women coming from different socio-economic and cultural background. It will do so by offering the opportunity to take ownership in replicating capacity building methodology and up-skill their entrepreneurial, digital and leadership skills and stimulating them to regularly exercise civic engagement.

In particular, the main aim of Young Women Leaders is to promote a new vision of women in 4 EU countries (Italy, Poland, Romania, Sweden) by building the capacities of up to 60 young women, supporting them in developing pilot and raising-awareness initiatives addressing their peers and citizens, and in designing the first EU Young Women Network. The project will promote the concept of parity in all fields of society and especially in politics, economy and in decision-making, joining together three main aspects: education in the form of capacity building, raising-awareness about leadership and more gender balanced society, and network building and development. All project’s activities, results and outputs are linked to these aspects and support its rationale based on the development of a cooperation and coalition building model designed and tested by EU labs based in 4 countries and characterized by a strong interaction between young women, as drivers of the process, and NGOs, CSOs, local authorities and citizens as followers and multipliers.

Main activities and results of the project include:
1. 4 needs assessment reports (1 country) based on the analysis of at least 25 interviews (5 per partner), 8 focus groups with at least 80 people (2 with at least 10 people per country), and 200 answers to the online survey
2. A Capacity Building program involving up to 60 young women aged 18-30 (10-15 per country) as trainees. The program will deliver at least 50 hours of training per country.
3. Organisation of one International Academy.
4. Launch of specific pilot activities in all target countries/cities, engaging with citizens and specific stakeholders through activities aimed to promote women empowerment in policies and politics and the active engagement and participation for enhancing social cohesion of communities and cities within the concept and values of EU solidarity.
5. A Project Toolkit summing up the most important YOUNG WOMEN LEADERS outputs and activities.
6. The YOUNG WOMEN LEADERS Digital Platform, joining together different materials and functions and ready to be used by other adult education providers and NGOs/CSOs for replicating the project’s methodology and actions.
7. Launch of the virtual EU Young Women Network, aiming to reach at least 200 registered members and at least 16 stakeholders (CSOs/NGOs/Associations and public authorities).
8. One final international conference bringing together at least 50 participants.

The project aims to achieve the following impacts:

a) Local
– Create a network formed by an engaged group of young women ready to up-skill their civic engagement and leadership skills, in order to combat gender inequalities in their community and beyond.
– Inspire a different way to fight youth women disengagement, more focused on their active involvement, giving them an opportunity to replicate capacity building training and take ownership to improve self-confidence and more tangible skills (e.g. entrepreneurial and digital skills).
b) National
– Boost the growth of the new generations and of the country as a whole, by enhancing the project’s cooperation model based on the collaboration between young women, trainers, stakeholders and local communities.
– Find new ways to promote women engagement, starting from showcasing a local initiative and going through an assessment of how to scale this up, and having the possibility to translate this approach into policies.
c) European.
– With the support of partners, young women will work on creating a EU Young Women Network (currently not existing) aiming to gather together different youth women organisations based in EU countries/cities or even to develop such organisations at EU countries’ level.
– Through the extensive network of the partners, the project is aimed to reach initiatives and organizations (such as the Brussels Binder, Young Feminist Europe, European Women’s Lobby, Association Femme d’Europe), with a view of joining the EU Network, looking for concrete and creative synergies with other organisations working for gender equality and women empowerment and engagement.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 226859 Eur

Project Coordinator

Internationella Kvinnoföreningen & Country: SE

Project Partners

• Young Women Network
• Fundacja “Zielony Slon”
• FUNDATIA CENTRUL PARTENERIAT PENTRU EGALITATE
• Project School