JEF Belgium

On Thursday we had to be creative in different kind of workshops and think about what we as JEF could do to improve gender equality or raise awareness about the fact that there IS an inequality. There was a group working on a gender resolution that would be put forward on the FC following on the seminar. Cordula, Merete and me focused on a campaign and worked out a possible street action, rewriting street names with famous and important women names to point out to the underrepresentation of women in different kind of fields. This campaign would need a webpage with names and info about different women from all over Europe. Also campaign material, such as postcards or leaflets were made that could be used in the campaign. Besides that short videos were produced that could be put online to support the gender campaign and one working group focused on the website made for this seminar, and made a blog diary of the whole week:

http://jefgenderequality.wordpress.com/

So we all produced a lot of output and can therefore sincerely say the topic was interesting and there is a need to spread the word about gender equality! After this creative sessions, we went out and had a splendid last evening party, since on Friday “Evaluation Day” participants left, we evaluated the whole week and new participants started arriving for the FC!

I had a wonderful week, meeting new JEF people and seeing old friends again, debating heavely and learning a lot, and off course, enjoying nice parties. Notting can top JEF seminars, so thanks to all the JEFFERS organizing these wonderful days for us!

If you would like to watch a video on the seminar or different video’s made about gender equality: http://www.youtube.com/flipgenie#p/u/0/b9spW51Wbjw

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Wednesday was “Experience Day” and, lucky us, it was sunny day as well! Divided into two groups, we had a guided tour with a local inhabitant through the old city center in the morning, and a presentation of the NGO Moznost Volby. This NGO is working about gender and feminism and some of their main goals are gender equality and implementation of gender mainstreaming, elimination and prevention of violence against women, elimination of all forms of discrimination and so on. They already organized campaigns that left quite a deep impact on the public opinion of Slovakia, like the one on “Every fifth woman is abused” in a domestic violence campaign. One out of five, that is outrageous! If you want to know more you can visit http://moznostvolby.wordpress.com .

In the afternoon we went to the European Commission to listen to a panel debate with a representative of the Council of Europe and local representatives, comparing the gender issue on European level as well as on the Slovakian. The debate was very interesting, but after a good lunch it is difficult to keep attention on a high level. After the debate we had some free time and we decided with a whole group to walk to the castle. It was worth the walk, though we could not see everything because of construction works. In the evening we went out dancing salsa and many more in Club Havana, enjoyable evening!

http://www.coe.int/t/e/human_rights/equality/