Trends of the last decades highlight an accentuated crisis of political representation, especially among youth who prefer to get involved in more selective and autonomous form of participation. At the same time, while political rights of women are embodied in the laws of most countries, they are not applied in practice and women continue to be under-represented in political decision-making, in public office and in the civil service. Factors contributing to this are numerous, including historical, cultural, ideological influences, as well as the specific economic and social circumstances of young people and it is clear that legislative actions (e.g. quotas, parity thresholds, targets, etc.) in parties and institutions are not sufficient to ensure gender parity, even less to ensure truly representative processes. The consortium of partners of “PatH-ER-ways: Creating pathways for political participation of young women” believes change must come at earlier stages, and so, it is necessary to encourage and empower active citizenship and participation, since young age. This changing attitude should start from civil society to change political culture from the grassroots. Thus, it is recognised the crucial role of youth NGOs that should be the 1st in incorporating gender equality, and instil the values of justice and participation necessary to the effective exercise of democratic citizenship, by training, educating and advocating for young women to turn their personal achievement into social and political ones.“PatH-ER” project aims to develop the competences of youth workers, youth trainers and educators to efficiently engage young women in the political life within their organizations, networks and communities, contributing to improve the representation of young women in the decision making bodies and structures within participatory and representative democracy, thus guaranteeing the defence of the particular issues and challenges they face and contributing to a more democratic, sustainable, representative and equalitarian society and to social and civil development.Nevertheless, this international consortium of partners understands this is a global situation, needing to be tackled both in nascent and more established democracies, since different realities persist over experiments made in term of legislative actions with different concrete achieved results around the world. Having in mind the global frame of this challenge and the multiculturalism lived in nowadays societies, the consortium of partner organizations has the aim of achieving a transnational understanding on this of topic and to contribute to the development of new models of women in politics worldwide.“PatH-ER” will provide a space for networking, intercultural dialogue, mutual learning experiences, and development of a long-term partnership between European, African, Asian and American organizations active in the field of youth participation and young women empowerment.
Trends of the last decades highlight a crisis of political representation, especially among youth who prefer to get involved in more selective and autonomous forms of participation. At the same time, while political rights of women are embodied in the laws of most countries, they are not applied in practice and women continue to be under-represented in decision-making processes. Believing that this is a global challenge (needing to be tackled both in nascent and more established democracies), that change must come at earlier stages (and so it is necessary to encourage and empower active citizenship and participation since young age) and that a sifting attitude should start from civil society (recognizing the crucial role of NGO changing the political culture from the grassroots), the project “PatHERways: Creating pathways for political participation of young women” joined an international consortium of organizations from Portugal, Cape Verde, East Timor, France, Mozambique, Peru and United Kingdom with the aim on developing the competences of youth workers, trainers, educators, activists and young leader around the world to create educational activities and engage with local and national decision-makers and stakeholders to support young women political participation. Through this project, the consortium of partners expects to contribute to improve the representation of young women in the decision making bodies and structures within participatory and representative democracy, thus guaranteeing the defence of the particular issues and challenges young women face and contributing to a more democratic, sustainable, representative and equalitarian society and to social and civil development. Regarding the activities, the project hosted a First Seminar (Faro, Portugal) that allowed participants to start exploring the main topics of the project, to get to know each other and initiate the process of group building and to start working on a common understanding of concepts and principles that would guide the overall project. During the Training of Trainers (Assomada, Cape Verde) we could strengthen the capacity of participants to act as activists, multipliers and trainers for youth participation and gender rights, as well as, to support them in creating a set of educational sessions that they could put in practice with their own community. In between, each partner had also the opportunity to have a Job Shadowing experience in the organization of another partner and to dive into the diversity of contexts, experiences and opportunities around other continents. During the Final Seminar (Cascais, Portugal), the participants could share all the results achieved at national level and to understand the impact that was already generated during the execution of the project, to perform a final evaluation of overall project, to discuss on several follow-ups opportunities, to present the main results of the project to stakeholders, as well as, to celebrate the opportunity of being part of this project. Stemming from the project, it was created the “PatHERways Handbook” that expects to support other organizations, activists and educators around the world to develop meaningful educational sessions for multipliers on youth participation and gender equality in their communities, together with the “Recommendations for the promotion of the political participation of young women” that aim to be addressed to decision makers and support advocacy initiatives for young women political participation in each partner country and worldwide. PatHERways provided the space for networking and intercultural dialogue, increasing understanding on youth participation and gender equality and allowed each partner to gain a new set of skills and tools to put in action innovative trainings, improve their networking and to advocate for young women political participation close to national and international decision makers and stakeholders.