Report of the UWE-European Project Meeting
Cork, 10 June 2005

The meeting was attended by members of at least 14 National Federations and Associations (NFAs): Austrian, Belgian, British, Dutch (=VVAO), Finnish, French, German, Irish, Italian, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swiss, and Turkish.

The president of the UWE-EP Steering Group, VVAO-member Cynthia Ringeling, opened the meeting with a short introduction for newcomers about the aim of the project: to empower women in Europe to enable them to take power and control of problematic situations in their societies.

On-going Projects

The secretary of the Steering Group, VVAO-member Audrey Kühler-Oostra, reported on the progress of the projects ongoing since the UWE meetings in Bordeaux 2003 and Bergen 2004:

1. The European Project website, initiated by Laura Pitulice from Timisoara Romania, can be visited via the IFUW website (www.ifuw.org/uwe) since May 2005 - thanks to the webmistress of IFUW- and will be updated by Laura Pitulice and Claire Desaint from France in cooperation with IFUW. Guidelines shall be made to present progress of sub-projects on the UWE-EP website and how to connect interactively.

2. The Finnish Federation has applied for European funding for a Mentoring Project in cooperation with NFA's from Slovenia, Latvia, and Turkey. They are waiting for a reaction from the European Commission and will report next year.

3. Public Speaking for Girls: The Irish Federation has developed a competition for girls under 15 since 1990, organised by their branches in Cork, Dublin, Galway, and Belfast in an encouraging and enjoyable school and college atmosphere. Ann Budd gave a demonstration on how they work in the morning of June 10th.

In the afternoon Danièle Pitavy explained how the French Association AFFDU organizes their Olympes de la Parole since 3 years. She read her translation of the summary of the publication by Christiane Camana in the AFFDU's magazine Diplômées of September 2004. The aim is to raise awareness among girls and boys of what equality means in every day life, through research and debate about a given theme. The French Ministries of Equal Opportunity and Education have acknowledged this speech contest as an educational tool and more schools participate every year from primary schools, collèges and lycées. New social groups with more acute identity and gender problems are becoming involved. French or English summaries in word.docs can be obtained from the speaker via the Steering Group (akoadam@planet.nl), also for email adresses of persons named in this report).

It was decided that every NFA can promote public speaking for girls in their own fashion, or in the Irish or French way.

4. The Croatians will come next year with more explicit plans for their capacity building for feminine mine victims. They are still looking for partners, but could not attend this meeting.

On-going Projects

1. Karine Henrotte, president of UWE, brought attention to the fact that the UWE website could help promote publications of women scientists and other scholars in Europe, so that they gain visibility elsewhere.Also most associations have projects or make publications that do not become known outside of their own countries. Linking to European Commission and academic websites is another possibility once we get the UWE-EP website working interactively and she suggested a new sub-project to promote ''academic networking'' between our NFAs. She expects a joint effort to promote women's publications could have a chance to be financed by the EU. CER's of interested NFA's are invited to contact the secretary of the Steering Group (akoadam@planet.nl).

Within this framework Danielle Gondard from France gave a presentation about a conference organized by the AFFDU and the French Association of Sciences about fighting stereotypes and the impact of social and cultural surroundings as interpreted by media and in psychology. She informed us about a book written by Catherine Vidal about brain, sex and power. (Ed. Belin). She also told us about the new ''Diplôme Interuniversitaire'' of Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 and University Pierre&Marie Curie Paris 6 for the study of Equality in chances for women and men. AFFDU was one of the initiators of this parttime higher education. (www.fp.upmc.fr or www.int-evry.fr/femmes_et_sciences)

The second speaker within this new subproject for academic networking was Elisabeth de Sotelo, working at the University of Koblenz, who has just published a book called New Women of Spain. The post-Franco era has shown an enormous development in the possibilities and capabilities of women in Spain of which she has collected examples. There is a special chapter about higher educated women.(sotelo@uni-koblenz.de).

2. Membership Development is an ongoing challenge for our European NFA's and IFUW in general. There were two presentations on this subject:

Gerhild Hansen and Inez Swoboda from Austria showed us in their workshop ''The future is Ours'' how marketing tools can be used for promoting our NFA's: corporate identity, representation at fairs, networking, vouchers to introduce a new attendee (and ''earn'' your own attendance) added to workshops young women ask for like women and power, money, competition, self-marketing. The VAÖ even gives financial support in cases and already opened a students hostel for young women 33 years ago. The recently rebuilt accomodation shall offer free internet access and good equipment and everybody has been invited for the big opening on October 1st!
In the discussion the need for a survey of living conditions of students was suggested as was the need for a critical mass of new members entering at the same time to balance the loss of members due to old age.

VVAO-members Maayke Frese and Regina van Oorsouw then came with a proposal for a new UWE-European sub-project: ''New members for NFAs''.
They stressed the fact that young members are a group of new members, as can be the (pre) pensioned persons. NFAs should adapt to their different needs, offering a worthy cause, solidarity and friends and organizing activities which give new knowledge, experience and best practices. Meeting after office hours, giving new members official positions quickly at the local level and repeating successful conferences at other locations has proved to be effective. Connection by internet regularly is important, also to the other NFA's.
First action of this sub-project will be the collection of data of present membership and age groups of all NFAs. (please mail to cir@vvao.nl)

A special network of Young Members of IFUW has already been initiated by the VVAO, a national young members day was a success in the Netherlands recently. The VVAO already demonstrated its experiences to DAB members in Hanover. Positive consequence of the workshop there was the formation of a group of 10 young members of DAB working on their own goals like advice for new professions.

The Austrian VAÖ and VVAO joined forces in Cork in the membership sub-project.

Possible Funding

To continue information about funding the EP-Steering Group invited Barbara Carey, president of the Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund, to highlight the possibilities of this fund, which supports women and children throughout the world. She explained VG is an independent organization which supports the work of IFUW, NFAs and other applicants. She stressed VG is ready to support action versus trafficking in women, the theme of the Cork UWE-meeting. UWE-EP subprojects could apply for financial support and would have to compete with about 250 applications per year.

She gave out flyers with details on the VG program, hoping that individual members become donators to this fund (www.vgif.org).

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Cynthia Ringeling closed the meeting with thanks to all participants, especially the Finnish Federation, which has offered to succeed the VVAO as Steering Group of the UWE-European Project in 2006.

20 June 2005 - Audrey Kühler-Oostra, secretary of the Steering Group of the UWE-EP, with thanks to Annette Neben, member of the Steering Group on behalf of the UWE Executive.