The International Day of Rural Women recognizes “the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty” and highlights the important role that rural women play in poverty alleviation, justice, democracy, and peace-building.
Yet, rural women are often the most marginalized portion of women worldwide, particularly affected in their roles as income generators, producers, mothers, and managers of their families, with decreased access to education and job opportunities, information and resources, social inequalities and gender-discriminatory ideologies about agricultural roles and rights, in spite of comprising 43 per cent of the agricultural labour force worldwide and 50 per cent or more in Africa and Eastern Asia.
This is why there is broad agreement that women’s empowerment is fundamental to achieving real, long lasting change. Women must be able to speak and act from a position of strength, with their rights and central importance to their villages and countries recognized and valued. Rural women must be at the heart of decision-making on allocation of resources and empowered through opportunity for growth and change.
How does CESIE contribute to the International Rural Women’s Day aims at European level?
Coming soon
GROWING STEPS is a training course for youth workers and young entrepreneurs. Tackling themes like: entrepreneurial initiatives in rural area, rural development as the tool for tackling unemployment among young people. STEPS will also provide information & stimulate debate around participation in the 2014 European elections. Its objectives:
- to provide youth workers with new and outstanding skills and competences in the area of youth entrepreneurship as well as with knowledge on how to support young people in job search and with entrepreneurial endeavor in rural area;
- to introduce new ways of reaching out to target groups of youth workers by providing them methods of support of those youngsters who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs);
- to emphasis importance of rural development in tackling financial crisis issues, youth unemployment and stagnation of rural area;
- to encourage being an active & informed European citizen through exploring EU opportunities and participation in elections;
- to facilitate the exchange of experiences and good practices, and promote cooperation in the field of youth employment in the EU and Eastern countries.
STEPS will be organised in Palermo (Italy), hosted by CESIE and last 8 days in April 2014. There will be 40 participants from 18 countries in total: European Union (Italy, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia), Turkey and Neighbouring Partner Countries of the Eastern Europe and Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russian Federation, Ukraine.
CESIE’s past projects targeting women in rural areas:
