This is a reference for Marco Marinelli

Participation of young women in civic and local governance

The training activity took place
in Vicenza
organised by Agenzia Italiana per la Gioventù - Italian NA
22 october to 26 october 2024
Reference person

Bruno Pizzni

(co-trainer)
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Aims & objectives

The seminar aims at exploring and debating the difficulties that young women can face when they want to be active in their community, but the space is very limited for them. The seminar provides the possibility to explore realities and good practices related to engagement of women in Italy and supports sharing and transferability of participants’ experiences and tools.

The concept of the seminar was born as a follow up of the seminar “Engagement of women in politics and entrepreneurship” held in Beirut under TCA 2019 by the Italian National Agency in cooperation with SALTO EuroMed Resource Centre, UK National Agency and GIZ LEAD programme and the seminar on Young Women Active in their communities held in Tunisia in 2023 by the Italian National Agency.

After having explored the different countries realities of women in politics, entrepreneurship and local communities, and having experienced how important is the participatory dimension for both fields, the idea is to put in the centre the participation as one of the main starting points for a full involvement of the women in the society and for a real gender equality.

Objectives:
Enhance Understanding and Awareness:
Objective: To deepen participants' understanding of the challenges young women face in engaging with their communities and to raise awareness about the importance of their active participation.

Promote Knowledge Sharing and Networking:
Objective: To create a platform for participants to share their experiences, tools, and best practices related to women's empowerment and civic engagement, fostering an environment of mutual learning and collaboration.

Empower and Equip Participants for Action:
Objective: To empower youth workers, leaders, and women active in local governance with the skills and knowledge necessary to support and enhance the active participation of young women in their communities.

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

30 international participants, both women and men. The activity has been opened to:
Youth workers, trainers, youth leaders, social workers working on local level and in local governance who is active in the field of women empowerment in politics and civic participation;
Women active in local governance and civic engagement.

We had participants from France, Latvia, Lithuania, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, Germany, Austria, Spain

Training methods used & main activities

During this training course we used different methodologies to address the topic of social inclusion, active participation and to let participants discuss about values of democracy and gender equality. In particular:

Gamefication, to let participants know more about each other and to work as learners group;
Theatre of the oppressed to reflect on power relation and participation;
Visual facilitation to support group dynamics, assignation of tasks and harvesting the learning outcomes

Outcomes of the activity

Participants:
- gained insights into the socio-cultural and structural barriers that limit women's engagement and learn about successful strategies and best practices from different countries to overcome these barriers.

- developed a network of contacts, established connections for future collaborations, and were equipped with practical tools and strategies to implement in their local contexts.

- came back to their local realties with concrete action plans, enhanced skills in youth work, and a deeper understanding of how to effectively promote gender equality and women's active participation at the local level.

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

During this training course I was part of the trainers team, being active in the different phases of the implementation:

- Collecting needs of participants and the ones outlined by the National Agencies involved, connecting to the principal objectives of the entire project flow.
We worked in team in the program design process, proposing activitie and methodologies that fit the objectives of the project.

During the implementation I delivered the activities connected to power relation, by using theatre of the oppressed, and to the concept of intersectionality in youth work, by using graphic facilitation and activating group dynamics.
Overall, I was present by supporting my colleagues during the activities delivered by them by interacting with the participants, giving clarification if needed and by doing time management.
In the end of the training course we had our debriefing session, useful to asses the experience and outlining outputs for the final report.

One of the task was also to fill in the final report with the activities I delivered and giving my perspective on the learning outcomes and group process

I worked on this training for 5 days as a full time trainer.

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