Report of the meeting of the UWE European Project on 29th of September 2006 in the city council hall of the Hague

The hall - in the shape of a Greek arena - was well filled. There were representatives from 16 European countries:
Albania, Austria, Belgium, Biscaya, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey and Turkish Cyprus.

The president of the UWE-EP Steering Group, Cynthia Ringeling, opened the third yearly meeting of the European Project and quickly gave the floor to the secretary Audrey Kühler-Oostra as moderator, because we had a tight schedule.

Sonya Höstman from Finland then gave her report on the Mentorship sub-project. A second version of her paper had been disseminated in the hall and is available by email on request, so I’ll only cite some of Sonya’s keywords:

• Suitable mentors can be seen as role models to enhance self esteem and competence.
• They should be good listeners, able to challenge others and to share knowledge.
• They are carefully matched with the mentees; the mentor need not necessarily be older.
• Good agreements are made about contacting each other, distinguishing educational-career- & personal- mentoring.
• The mentor herself also benefits by broadening her horizon.

The mentoring has been going on in Vasa for 6 years now, and a PR flyer helped with attracting participants to sponsored events. Many new members were thus acquired by the Finnish association.

Collaboration with the Turkish and Slovenian association (alas the Latvian contact did not continue) made it possible to apply to the European Commission for funding via the Socrates program for volunteers associations.

The costs of the UWE-EP mentorship program is calculated to be € 4.000,- per year because of travel expenses, the duration is about 2 or 3 years. The European Commission has sent back the proposal to Sonya for more detailed information, so we hope to hear more news next year at the UWE-EP. A clear final report would be suitable as a guideline for other NFAs, some of whom already showed interest.

Vlasta Vince from Croatia presented the new printed and email version of the sub-project on Reintegration into society by training and education opportunities for women and children landmine victims. They have physical and psychological damage and mostly live in rural areas.

Because the CAUW has to start from scratch – having absolutely no money and difficult logistics: use of the internet by members of CAUW and others still is very limited - her request was specifically directed to everybody of the UWE membership who could help with networking: to find the organization who would fund such an educational project, or with whom it would be good to join forces. There has been an email from the Newcastle (BG) member Elizabeth Pritchard, who offers help. The participants at the meeting brainstormed about possible “allies” like the Princess Diana Fund, Movendi (a Dutch initiative for handicapped children), or Handicap International.

Barbara Carey from the Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund and Anne Holden Ronning from Norway suggested that a well-written, detailed project plan might find funding, especially for ex-Yugoslav countries, but Vlasta (a very active very senior citizen!) also needs help in writing a suitable project plan in English. Karine Henrotte suggested asking the producers of prothesis to help with an educational project, in which the Croatian members, or their contacts could be integrated.

Volunteers and idealists are very much encouraged to bring in their expertise and brainwaves.

Christel Moor and Gabrielle Suff from Great Britain then presented the new UWE-EP issue on older women. The Canterbury branch of BFGW produced (document available) an inventory of the problems older women, = 55+ women, encounter like: pensions, health, employment, independence, isolation, and possible solutions like information, adult education.

The difficult issue of Pensions is, in the opinion of the presentators, the most important to address, as it is due to interrupted careers because of the raising of a family- with its other financial disadvantages.

They suggest making an inventory of the situation in the European countries and then trying to lobby with the respective own governments.

Renée Gérard mentioned that the European Women’s Lobby is also working on this subject, involving younger generations, with whom communication is necessary. Later on during the UWE General Assembly she mentioned working groups in the Council of Europe and Anne Nègre, also from France, suggested the framework of CEDAW.

The EU must have proper data on this subject so there is a lot of work to be done, but I do not recall which NFAs offered to help and join in with the necessary research. I did have correspondence since the Steering Group suggested this topic from Bulgaria, Biscaya, Switzerland, Norway, Turkey and the Netherlands stating their interest, so I hope you all will find each other to get going. All participants agreed it is a very ambitious sub-project and I do hope you will be able to show some progress at the UWE meeting in Manchester next year!

Other matters

Verena Welti from Switzerland stated that the Swiss would like to follow the Irish Public Speaking for Girls format, while Biskaya has contacted the French association for their Olympes de la Parole. Public Speaking thus is a popular item!
Barbara Carey from the Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund offered her expertise in implementing projects to everybody concerned and also asked for new donators to make more projects possible.

Audrey Kühler-Oostra wondered what we can do about the problem of trafficking in persons, as no NFA took up the issue of the Cork Conference as a sub-project. The connected issue of the Dutch legalizing of prostitution was part of the Hague program, organized by the VVAO.

Elisabeth de Sotelo stressed the importance of the UWE website to draw the attention to academical publications of our members and to interesting academical conferences. She has encouraged contacts with other women in her own empowerment project.

Karine Henrotte underlined the networking possibilities we have now, to encourage funding.

Leigh Bradford Ratteree of the IFUW office in Geneva stated that she badly needs coordination in and regular updating of the UWE information on the UWE Website. This problem was addressed later, after the UWE General Assembly had transferred the Steering Group from the VVAO to the Finnish delegation.

My speech at the UWE-AGM with an overview of the first 3 years of the UWE European Project is available on the UWE website. I thank you all for your cooperation with the VVAO Steering Group, of which it was a pleasure to be the first secretary.

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Audrey Kühler-Oostra, Amsterdam, with thanks to Annette Neben, treasurer of UWE, for her notes and to Danielle Josselin-Drouet for her translations in French during the meeting.