Report Seminar Tartu June 2008
REPORT SEMINAR IN TARTU
June 2008
The seminar in Tartu proved that the future work of the CEE Network for Gender Issues had to go in the direction of organizing joint SD campaigns on concrete gender equality issues, in order to raise the capacity of our entire SD parties - women and men alike - to deal with gender equality in a concrete way and in direct cooperation with all stakeholders. This is the way to bring our parties closer to the voters and to persuade women voters to see us as the champions of their human rights.
Conclusion No 1: In 2009 CEE Network should continue this practice, opening a new issue campaign on SD policies on women reproductive health and rights.
Unfortunately, not all parties invited to this seminar could attend, so CEE Network for Gender Issues – Tallinn Office- will organize training seminars on how to do this child care campaign with the SD women in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine -if possible also in Poland.
Conclusion No.2: Reet Laja will visit party leaderships and WF and our NGO and TU partners in North Western Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and Poland till the beginning of September and give them all needed materials and instructions.
The elements for the seminar on national child care campaigns are as follows:
• WF in each party has to prepare the analysis of the state of art of the child care in their country or city where in power and to compare it with the EU Barcelona targets and underline strong points, weak points and prepare SD child care policy proposals for the improvements.
• The leadership of each party included in this campaign has to discuss this analysis and policy improvement proposals and accept the plan of national campaign
• Each national campaign has to have at least one big public event where the party is selling its child care policy to the voters
The participants present at the seminar did not al properly prepare for the seminar.
Conclusion No. 3: All parties which hasn’t done it yet will send us their expertise on the issue (answers to our questioner) till the end of August, and inform us on how they are preparing for the national SD child care campaigns. They will all include WF and party leaderships in these preparations and include at least one big public event in order to present to the public their SD view on the issue of child care.
The bases for the preparations of the national campaigns are the materials prepred for the seminars in SEE and in Tartu.
Conclusion No. 4: All participants and all invited will get the following materials:
• Put the Children First PES Group in the Committee of the Regions Booklet
• Sonja Lokar power point presentation
• Zagreb strategy for kids - SEE example of best practice
• Mrs. Ainissar power point presentation – Estonian example
• List of participants from this seminar with all e/mail addresses
• Minutes from the Tartu seminar
The follow up of this seminar has two phases: national child care campaigns and reporting from them till the end of September and an exchange of the best practices seminar for 10 best campaign organizers.
Conclusion No. 5: CEE Network for Gender Issues Budapest Office will invite -on the bases of the written reports about the national campaigns sent to Sonja Lokar till the end of September, ten best campaign organizers to the closing up seminar in Budapest in October 2008.
At the seminar, we have also discussed the situation in Lithuania, where the parliament is getting ready to ;pass the Concept of the family, where only married couples with the children count for the real family with the rights to the state care and support. CEE Network for Gender Issues organized that all its partners in the CEE and SEE were invited to sign a petition to the Lithuanian parliament, government and state president, in order to protest against such discriminatory concept to the family. All of them signed this petition. Nevertheless the Concept was passed in the parliament.
Conclusion No. 6: Sonja Lokar will inform Zita Gurmai, PES W leader and propose to the PES W to organize legal experts who will make an antidiscrimination legal case first in Lithuania and if this does not work, at the European Court for Human Rights.
PES W are starting their preparations for the EU elections in 2009.
Conclusion No. 7: All participants are supporting the idea of the CEE Network that we should start a pan European formal Coalition and advocacy campaign of women NGO/s, political party women, women in TU , experts and media, in order to introduce parity (50-50 of women and men) by the law in all decision making bodies at all levels.
Participants were also informed (by Anne Sophie Allarp, one of the candidates for the position of the Secretary General of the SIW) about the preparations for the SIW Congress and elections in Athens in June 2008. We all agreed that we need stronger, more innovative and interactive SI and SIW.
All conclusions were accepted with the consensus of all participants.
Tartu, June 6, 2008
