Training with Jamila Schäfer and Ricarda Lang (Green party, Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, Berlin)
A network for raising awareness about women experts active in public domain WPS Prague in cooperation with Heinrich Böll Foundation, office Prague, Trust Women Slovakia, Goethe-Institut Bratislava in partnership with Ženy spolu and PSF cordially invite all young or senior women candidates and potential candidates for political career either party affiliated or independent to participate at the training with German Green party politicians Jamila Schäfer and Ricarda Lang (Berlin) to share experiences and knowledge essential for success of female politicians and increase their ability to influence party’ s politics in the frame of gender equality and environmental protection.
Participation of women in Slovak politics has been one in the lowest in EU. We have around 20 percent of women in national parliament and key state institutions and in the face of upcoming parliamentary elections all running parties do not come up with desirable female participation as we would expect from young, modern EU country[1]. Since women mostly enter high-level politics in the later age as experts turning politicians they usually lack fundamental experiences from life of a political party. This lack of experience is a huge obstacle in their future success of lobbying in any agenda they have.
Therefore we would like to discuss practical issues of recruiting young women for parties, their career development through inside the party, ability to successfully negotiate gender-sensitive and environmental policies in male dominated environment. The workshop will be led by urbanist and director of WPS Prague, Milota Sidorova.
Registration: The training has limited amount of seats (40). Please ensure your place by filling up this form
Language: English (possibility of partial translation into Slovak in the group work)
Entry: free of charge, mandatory registration
Context
Modern Slovakia is a young country founded after split from Czech Republic in early 90’s. It became EU member state in 2004. However in terms of gender-equality linked to sustainability Slovakia ranks pretty low in terms of gender-equality most significantly seen in low representation of women in politics (app 20 percent) and pay gap (average Slovak woman earns less than 20 percent than her male counterpart). Strong influences from church can be felt in media debate and policy making although Slovakia is a secular state. Compared to Czech Republic historically there have been less educational institutions and smaller pool of intellectuals to lead the debate. The country suffers from non-existing education on gender equality and sees very little conscious gender-mainstreamed policies although Slovakia also accepted Treaty of Amsterdam that binded EU members states to act on this matter.
To sum it shortly, there is a strong need to raise awareness of women in feminist and gender equality theories and connect it to sustainability in profession and political dimension of societal life. While most of rare educational and self-development programs for women target women as being successful only through seeking individual strategies they hardly recognize wider connect of patriarchy and capitalist driven society. However a critical group of women has emerged seeking answers to deeper questions of inequalities in society.
Program
8:30-9:00 - Registration of participants
9:00-9:45 - Introduction, welcome
Introduction of the organizers, guests and participants
expectations from the training
declaring realms of women participation in politics
9:45 - 10:30 - Growing a Woman Politician inside German Green Party (Jamila Schäfer, Ricarda Lang, Green Party)
lecture / input on personal and party career development with emphasis on gender equality/feministic and environmental agenda inside Green Party. The lecture will target importance of entering political party as young female members and vice versa, the culture of Green party and its work with (young) women until they become primary political candidates. Lectures will target obstacles in female participation and ways how to overcome them with systemic work or/and solidarity and sponsorship of women in politics
Q&A
10:30 - 11:00 - Coffee break and networking
11:00 -12:45 - Fair and Successful Woman Politician - Block I
introduction of Ženy-Spolu (Women-Together) platform, program and activities (Simona Petrík, Silvia Hudáčková, PS/Spolu)
group work on targeting opportunities and obstacles in women’s recruiting, participation and success in / inside political party in Slovak / German context
discussing gender quality and environmental aspects based on participants’ agendas
discussing essential skill sets, networking and lobbying skills inside male dominated teams
12:45-13:30 - Lunch and networking
lunch inside training venue
13:30 - 14:30 Fair and Successful Woman Politician - Block II
quick chat with Irena Biháriová (PS/Spolu)
group work on continuing sharing experiences from previous block
workshop on suggestions and criteria on how to improve women’s political participation inside Slovak parties and vice versa what could Slovak parties do for better work and personal and professional growth of their female members.
14:30-15:00 Summary and feedback
closing discussion, feedback of participants
next steps
15:00 - End, informal networking
We welcome
mostly young women in initial phases of their careers, open minded women in higher positions leading to political life of Slovakia, multipliers, women candidates and supporters in parliamentary elections Slovakia 2020 independent or from any party
About trainers
Jamila Schäfer, photo: Rasmus Tanck
Jamila Schäfer, Green Party, member of federal executive board, Berlin
Jamila Schäfer is one of the active, young leaders in the Green party with which she has been engaged since she was 18 years old. Jamila has been a member of the federal executive board of BÜNDNIS 90 / DIE GRÜNEN since 2018. Her focus is on the coordination of green politics in the European and international framework. Studied sociology and philosophy. Between 2015-2017she was Federal Spokeswoman for the GREEN YOUTH. Between 2014-2015 she was serving as assessor on the federal executive committee of the GREEN YOUTH. Between 2012-2014: Spokeswoman for the GREEN YOUTH Munich
Ricarda Lang, photo: Bento.de
Ricarda Lang, deputy federal chairwoman and spokeswoman, Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen
Ricarda Lang is a German politician. Since November 2019, she has been deputy federal chairwoman and spokeswoman for women's policy of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, before that she was spokeswoman for the Green Youth , the youth organization of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, for 2 years. Lang ran in the 2019 European elections for list position 25 of the Greens. Her political focus is on education and university policy as well as feminism.
Simona Petrík, photo: SME.sk
Simona Petrík, PM, politician, candidate for parliamentary elections Slovakia 2020, PS / Spolu, Ženy Spolu
She is a politician, feminist, currently (2020) Member of the National Council of the Slovak Republic elected as a SIEŤ party, but is currently a member of the non-parliamentary party Spolu - Občianska demokracia, where she holds the position of a member of the Presidency and family policy expert. She co-founded and is involved in the Platform for Women in Ženy - Spolu.
Silvia Hudáčková, photo: Anna Juneková
Silvia Hudáčková, PS / Together, Women-Together
Silvia is a media expert, assistant to NRSR MP Simony Petrík, spokeswoman for the Spolu party. She is also an active member of Women - Spolu.
Irena Biháriová, photo: Youtube
Irena Bihariova PS / Spolu
Irena Bihari is a lawyer. She has long been specializing in extremist crimes, including cyberhate - hate speech in the online environment. She focuses mainly on its criminal aspects of the phenomena and analysis of the law enforcement authorities in prosecuting extremist crime.
Milota Sidorová, photo: Marek Jančúch
Milota Sidorova, director, WPS Prague, Head of Participatory Planning Office, Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava
Milota is a professional moving within interdisciplinary aspects of city and urban planning. She studied landscape architecture, urban planning, graphic design, film production, urbanism, methods of social research and human resource management in different schools around Europe, Asia and America. She was a founding member of international festival about urban planning - reSITE festival and its coordinator between 2011 and 2015. In 2013 she was awarded Fulbright scholarship to study urbanism in New York City. In 2014 she finished doctoral studies in landscape architecture on the topic: Catalytic impacts of markets on public spaces. In 2015 she co-founded initiative Women. Public Space. Prague - a network promoting active women in architecture, urban planning and development of community life. She was one of the co-authors of EU project Shared Cities: Creative Momentum. Milota also lectures at various universities and institutions across Central Europe. She cherishes interdisciplinary research that she likes to combine with execution of different projects. Her focus often lies on fostering issues of gender mainstreaming, policy making with environmental agenda. Since November 2019 she has been Head of Participatory Planning Office at the Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava.
Organizers
WPS Prague is Prague-Bratislava based network connecting women and men professionals from urban development mostly related disciplines in Czech and Slovak republic (Central Eastern Europe) in order to promote knowledge about gender equality and gender sensitive architecture and planning while bringing light to work of female experts in the industry. Through history of the initiative we were able to find like-minded partners with whom we organized different events (lectures, seminars, international study trips) and launched publications on the topic. As the leader Milota Sidorova relocated to Bratislava she expanded network of partners and sought ways how to foster initiative in Slovakia.
Trust Women Slovakia is Bratislava based non-governmental organization connecting women from business, public sphere and politics (different fields). Trust women organizes lectures, workshops, offers mentorship program. Until now the philosophy aimed more on success of women and work-life balance without explicit targeting feministic theories and connect of gender-mainstreaming policies. This in the future should change and blend in more naturally into the program of the organization.
Heinrich Böll Foundation, Prague Office
The Heinrich Böll Foundation is the German Green Political Foundation. Its main tenets are ecology and sustainability, democracy and human rights, self-determination and justice. We place particular emphasis on gender democracy, meaning social emancipation and equal rights for women and men. We are also committed to equal rights for cultural and ethnic minorities and to the societal and political participation of immigrants. Finally, we promote nonviolence and proactive peace policies. Our namesake, the writer and Nobel Prize laureate Heinrich Böll, personifies the values we stand for: defence of freedom, civic courage, tolerance, open debate, and the valuation of art and culture as independent spheres of thought and action. We are an independent organization headquartered in Berlin, yet we are an international actor. We cooperate with 160 project partners in over 60 countries and maintain offices in more than 30 countries. The Prague office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation coordinates the Foundation´s activities in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia.
In partnership with
Ženy Spolu is an initiative within Spolu political party, adhering manifesto of equal rights for all women and men in Slovakia. Its purpose is to recruit, network and educate women from all over Slovakia to foster equality between men and women that should not only be a theory, but everyday reality.
PSF is a platforming inside Progressive Slovakia political party striving for a progressive approach to addressing the important issues of gender equality and eliminating sexism from all walks of life. Our members are people from different social and professional backgrounds with a common interest in creating a society in which no woman will be disadvantaged simply because she is a woman.
The Goethe Institute is a worldwide cultural institution of the Federal Republic of Germany. We support the teaching of the German language abroad and cultivate international cultural cooperation in Slovakia.
[1] Progresivne Slovensko and Spolu nominated 34 percent of women candidates thus becoming leader in the female participation in parliamentary elections 2020 in Slovak Republic.