Projects WOMEN AND TERRITORY
The “Women and territory” project has its roots in the awareness of the scarce representation (and then isolation) of women in the local authorities elective assemblies, the awareness of a lack of lobbying actions and networking between elected women, the awareness of the poor visibility of the paths and political action in the feminine.
The project is aimed to build a network of the women elected in the provincial territory, with the purpose to promote a new gender culture, to share experiences, to set the instruments and a mutual strategy.
Stage 1. In 2005, meetings spread in the territory were arranged with the women elected in city councils and boards. Besides a study visit to the European Parliament in Bruxelles was fostered, hosting a delegation of 30 women elected in the councils of the province of Milan. During the visit, the workshop “The roll of Europe in gender policy” was organized in the presence of the European Parliament women deputies.
The results come out from the local meetings and from the visit in Bruxelles merged in a plenary assembly aimed to set out a shared program to be accomplished in the second stage.
Stage 2. Set out in three groups, the women administrators worked to develop and establish their network. The aim is to strengthen the capacity, to set practical proposals to be spread inside city councils and proper organizations, to promote activities to make the citizens aware. Among the subjects of the work groups:
♦ Gender policy and mainstreaming. Discussion about structures, know-how and resources meant for equal opportunities in public administration
♦ Statutes and participation. From the observation on the statute’s roll towards women to the reading of them, analysing some good practices and the effects in terms of female participation to public decisions.
♦ Communication. The importance of communication in managing the relations with different interlocutors; the strategic aspects of communication to develop the territory in a gender perspective; the planning of internal communications; analysis of some case-history which can provide advice, techniques and conciliation tools.
Close the workshops the Recommendations to the city and province Councils and Boards were drawn up.
Stage 3. In this step the main targets of the Network were:
♦ To strengthen and set the network roll, in order to enhance the projects promoted by the Province of Milan and make them work in synergy. To spread the knowledge of the projects under way, the leaflet “Gender Policy: projects and services of the Province of Milan” was made
♦ To support Councils in implementing the advices come out from the work groups, either to spread a new gender culture and to further new tools and techniques for a gender oriented local governance
♦ To screen the development of gender policy in provincial local boards.
Stage 4. An advisory group was organized to determine the most suitable ways to get the Network established. The group analysed similar cases to set the most effective form and to determine the rules which could run in the future a new political body.
Stage 4 included also a few interviews to some mayors of the Councils of the province of Milan, in order to know the present situation and the future trends of gender policy in the administrations.