As social and historical subjects, women also have the right to propose new ways of being in the world, based on diversity of opinion, culture and civic education. We are at a time when it is crucial to encourage women to position themselves in the face of social conflicts, extremist nationalism, pandemics, discrimination, racism, etc. In the frame of their Strategic Partnership, there will be organized four transnational meetings in the project, as well as carry out job shadowing and professional development activities for women with social disadvantage. At the same time, a research compilation in the field will be conducted, and discussed during the transnational meetings is for the production of common results. Which will be the following: one Tool kit online for Women’s Leadership in cultural work; one YouTube Chanel with 7 web-series with statements of invited artists from the Magdalena Project Network; one online handbook with reflections on the project activities. It is worth to highlight that the production of the project results will be guided by the intersectional feminist perspective, in which aims not to categorize women within a bourgeois and white logic, but to invest in it, how aspects of one's social and political identities (gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, etc.) might combine to create specific modes of discrimination. In this sense, most of the methods are practised in common at each person involved in the activities, to train new ways of self-expression (learners) and methods to stimulate active citizenship (trainers). Our partnership involves four organizations, one from Germany, Italy, Poland and Denmark, with diverse expertise in adults civic education, committed to empowering disadvantaged. The participants of the project will go through a capacity building program created by the project, they are older and young learners with some migrant background or social vulnerability. We wish to bridge the mentioned gap through creative approaches based on their experiences and concerns. They work with methods they will experiment– theatre, role-playing and situational games, discussion events with (local) politicians, world café, decolonial cultural dance, creative writing, among others. These activities also take place within the context of a cultural event, festival or meeting. The objectives of the project are to improve the quality of education in and to increase the take-up of these subjects in the work conditional. Therefore, to ensure sustainability and dissemination of project results, the Strategic Partnership foresees conferences at local, national and European level, as well as designs jointly a follow-up strategy.
We wished to create a bridge between these people with experience of being a woman through creative approaches based on their experiences and concerns. The objectives of the project have been to improve the quality of education and to create a bigger space for them where they could express themselves and create or exchange. - To create awareness of gender differences in the cultural environment; - To provide expertise for women creators, in feminism, empowerment, and gender equality; - To hold 4 workshops with joined staff from the organizations to increase capacity building; - To give visibility to artistic work produced by female artists on the web.
Women as a social group have a struggle that has been crossing generations for centuries, seeking emancipation and space for expression in the political and cultural formations of societies. This struggle is marked by stories of abnegation, murder, torture and all kind of violence in the fight for basic rights like education, freedom to come and go, reproductive rights or individual right to dress as one pleases, or for example exercising the civic right to vote for a political representative. These are rights that have been gradually won over the last 150 years in the history of Western European society. In some countries on the African, Asian and American continents, as well as in Islamic countries, women still face even more ignoble struggles over female genital mutilation, early marriage, and the naturalization of rape, among other things, as a result of sexist cultural traditions that deeply wound their basic human rights. At the present time, we are still facing the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in domestic violence against women and girls during quarantine and social isolation is once again showing the world that is still missing basic human rights for women. On 08.04.2020 the UN Secretary-General warned: “For many women and girls, the threat looms largest where they should be safest. In their own homes.” for this reason, the authorities are called upon to take a stand against the increase of gender-based violence. In this sense, the discussion and the urgent desire for a debate on the importance of gender equality at the global and local levels in all fields are currently very much on the social agenda. In the Europe-wide debate on women's rights, the focus on how to create and preserve Gender equality and equal opportunities for women is more than an affirmative action of social inclusion; it represents the effort in preventive measures aimed at valuing the lives of women. Consequently, we choose these priorities because the project “Women Performing Europe - The Magdalena Project across borders", aims through creativity and culture, to create spaces of sociocultural visibility for women at the international level. This project will create dialogues between generations and diverse women's cultural contexts. It will also promote tools that recognize historically the female contribution to arts and as well as offering active participation in the process of the formation of European cultural heritage. As social and historical subjects, women also have the right to propose new ways of being in the world, based on diversity of opinion, culture and civic education. We are at a time when it is crucial to encourage women to position themselves in the face of social conflicts, extremist nationalism, pandemics, racism and any kind of discrimination.