Purpose:
To empower women from all origins and socio-cultural backgrounds by creating relational spaces where women meet and learn and supporting them in the acquisition of skills.
Stimulus/Rationale:
The city of Sabadell has taken several measures to guarantee that gender equality is well represented in organisations that work with the municipality and participate in the decision -making on issues related to the reception and inclusion of migrants and ethnic minorities. The Gender, Feminisms and LGTBI Section develops specific actions to promote the empowerment of migrant women.
The Gender Plan 2018-2022 addresses issues around ‘Diversity and Intersectionality’ and ‘Visibility and Social and Political Participation’. The Plan contemplates different lines of action that include the empowerment of migrated and Roma women and the promotion of their associative activity; as well as the diversification of the participants in the different spaces of participation and decision making incorporating the intersectional perspective.
A new Equality and LGBT Plan is under elaboration.
Process:
The “Espacio Mujeres” (Women's Space) programme aims to provide personal tools to women and to create links within the community. The programme offers relational learning spaces located in different neighbourhoods of the city: Sabadell north, Sabadell south, Can Puiggener and Torre-Romeu. It organises different activities focused on topics related to the physical and mental health of the participants (knowledge of the environment, female health, personal growth, women's rights, gender violence, etc.).
The Espacio Mujeres Recién llegadas (Newly Arrived Women's Space) are relational learning spaces for migrant women with significant difficulties of access to social or participatory spaces in the city. Thus, the programme aims to respond to their need to acquire and develop basic skills to ensure their inclusion in the host society and specifically in the territory or neighbourhood where they live. And it aims to facilitate the processes of social inclusion of these women, offering the necessary tools to generate strategies for successful incorporation into the country of arrival and to improve their participation and civic interaction. Language classes are not provided: It is a prerequisite that women have a minimum language level to follow the content of the sessions. Some sessions relate to better know the city resources and services, others deal with feminism and women's rights issues, and others where community participation and links with the neighbourhood are encouraged.
Sewing our rights is an initiative where women meet to share their experiences and sew them.
The starting point is the reflection on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, therefore, each work is accompanied by an article of this fundamental legislation of the rights of people, and that these rights do not have an abstract and theoretical validity, but are manifested in all areas of life, and reach even the simplest and most intimate.
Workshops take place in civic centres, and women are encourage to share their stories with other women in the neighbourhood. Work were exhibited at the civic centre were the workshops took place.
Impact:
As it is an intersectional programme, led by the reception programme but managed jointly with the Equality and Community Intervention departments, the joint work and coordination between the three departments has improved a lot
