UWE-EP overview
presented at the Annual General Meeting of UWE
29 September 2006
by Audrey Kühler-Oostra
Secretary of the VVAO Steering Group of the UWE European Project

Dear Friends,

Before the General Assembly of UWE transmits the responsibilities of the Steering Group of the UWE European Project from the Dutch to the Finnish Association, I would like to give you a short overview of the history of the European project as I have been involved in it.

During the Kassel UWE meeting of 2000 the VVAO offered a workshop “the road to money’’ especially designed by our CER, Annette Wijering and the working group on Eastern Europe (POE) for the Eastern European NFAs. The success of this workshop prompted the POE to design a sequel for the 2002 UWE conference in Dubrovnik, geared to the problem that in Communist times active women’s participation had been state controlled and after the Wende had become obsolete because women had other problems to deal with: a complete change in government and social-economic framework. They also had ambivalent feelings towards meeting in associations.

In Dubrovnik, all the participants sat at mixed tables and through an interactive role game, discussed the issues for project plans and the practice of applying for European funding, setting up rules on how to proceed. Working together in a mix of NFAs was an enlightening experience for everybody, I think, and at the AGM the VVAO was asked to set up a European Project to keep up the generated impetus. As past CIR, I was later invited by the VVAO board to join the new CER, Ans Luttmer-Kat, and Cynthia Ringeling who had been the project leader in Dubrovnik, in the preparations.

In the spring of 2003, the European Project plan was conceived, with the aim of: the empowerment of European women to enable them to take power and control of difficult situations in their own societies. This aim was meant to be an umbrella for various sub-projects, proposed by the NFAs present at the Bordeaux UWE meeting and interested in joining the European Project. At the UWE-EP Cynthia presented a workshop to choose the most viable sub-projects and to arrange cooperation between NFAs, with the CER and a contact person as responsible actors. A statement was prepared for the UWE AGM later in the day, where the General Assembly voted to appoint the VVAO as the first Steering Group of the European Project, with the responsibility to annually report to the AGM of UWE on the progress – or lack of it- of the EP. Important in the set-up is, that the Steering Group works independently from the Boards of the rotating NFA’s. This is to avoid conflict of interests and to involve as many members as possible of the NFA in question in UWE.

Since the autumn of 2003 Cynthia Ringeling as president, Audrey Kühler-Oostra as secretary and – during a year and a half - Annette Pancras as expert on funding, have formed the Steering Group, with Annette Neben who joined on behalf of the Executive.

For the Bergen meeting of 2004, I took the responsibility to arrange the UWE-EP workshop, as Cynthia was not available. The French and Irish NFAs each presented a paper about their way to enhance public speaking for girls as an empowering tool and the Bulgarian representative showed a great interest. Then we had a very exciting open telephone conversation with Laura Pitulice straight from Timisoara, Romania, while Anne Asserson from the hosting Norwegian association showed the powerpoint presentation about a UWE website Laura had designed. I’ll never forget the lovely butterflies on the screen symbolizing our diversity and the flags of all UWE’s NFAs, which - since the implementation of the website in 2005 by IFUW’s Leigh Bradford Ratteree, Laura Pitulice and France’s Claire Desaint - now give each NFA the chance to communicate about their own association or federation. The addresses of all CERS are regularly updated, and reports of our meetings can be published for everybody in the world to read.

In connection with the list of EU websites for funding programs collected by Annette Pancras, Karine Henrotte gave the participants in Bergen some very useful tips on how to proceed. She also advised the Croatian Association, which had asked for UWE-members partnership in their proposal, for an income generating project for mine victims, but didn’t get much response from the higher educated women present, to look for European partners in the field of peace building or the handicapped, as the necessary joint ventures for EU funding can be formed in any combination, as long as there is co-funding available.

It would be very welcome to the women’s movement if these European programs had easier rules with which to comply!

In the afternoon Sonya Hostman of the Finnish Association gave a general lecture on mentorship for higher educated women in high academic or buisiness positions. This issue has been taken up as an EP sub-project. The joint venture between Finland, Turkey, Slovenia (alas Latvia did not continue) has already applied for European funding at the EU Commission.

At the 2005 Cork UWE-EP meeting there was a full house to hear about the last news on the above mentioned ongoing projects and the presentation of new activities: on membership development, a very important issue in the International Federation of University Women, to which we all belong. The Austrian and Dutch representatives, Gerhild Hansen and Inez Svoboda and Maayke Frese and VVAO/IFUW Young Member Regina van Oorsouw demonstrated their strategies and ideas and then there were two academic papers by Danielle Gondard and Elisabet de Sotelo to show that our website can have a function in publishing our academic highlights to the world.

This year the Steering Group suggested the topic “empowerment of older women in Europe” to which the Canterbury branch of the British association reacted with a very interesting paper. Of the discussion at the Hague meeting this morning I have made a separate report. It also makes clear that European branches and not only NFAs can work together on topics that have a common interest. As long as contact persons keep their email addresses updated and notify IFUW of any changes and also have the responsibility to distribute the ensuing communication to each other and the members of their own NFA, I am confident we have a worthwhile project for European higher educated women to contribute to and that the Finnish Association will enhance the empowerment of European women.

On behalf of the first UWE-EP Steering Group I thank you for your confidence and cooperation. Being a member of the Steering group was a very rewarding experience and we made a lot of friends!