News
A Brave New Gender World
April 2008
Can messages channelled through the media help to change or
even dismantle deeply engrained gender roles and stereotypes? Kathleen Van
Brempt, the Flemish Community's Minister for Mobility, Social Economy and Equal
Opportunities joined forces with the Flemish ESF Agency to explore that
question. The outcomes of their media campaign were presented at a Peer Review
that took place, on 28 and 29 February 2008, in Leuven.
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EQUAL closing event in Belgium
March 2008
A mainstreaming event to be held soon in Brussels.
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Should microfinance be gender specific?
February 2008
"We need micro finance for all, but it may also require special techniques to
reach key groups such as women". So Maria Nowak concluded her statement in the
presidential style debate titled 'one size fits all' held at the end of the two
days "Gender Equality in micro entrepreneurship and microfinance in Europe"
in Madrid on 13th and 14th December.
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Diversity in EQUAL – Now, you can read all about it!
February 2008
The last two events in the European programme for mainstreaming EQUAL's
good practices in its Employability Thematic Field took place at the end of last
year. These Policy Fora both looked at diversity, but within different contexts,
and full reports on each are now available.
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Reinventing a future for compulsive gamblers in Estonia
February 2008
Problem gambling is a relatively new issue in Estonian society,
surrounded quite often with the aura of judgment. The EQUAL development
partnership "Reintegration of Compulsive Gamblers into the Labour Market and
Prevention of Social Exclusion" was the first in Estonia to start
helping people who have problems with gambling.
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"Social Entrepreneur 2007 in France" ... and the first prize goes to the founder
of an EQUAL childcare project!!!
February 2008
Question: What is there in common between the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF)
and a French EQUAL project? Answer: Klaus Schwab is the Chairman and Founder of
both the WEF and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship which awarded
its prize in France for the very first time in 2007. The winner was Anne-Karine
Stocchetti, who was acknowledged for her achievements in the field of childcare
– 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – developed in her Gepetto and Alice EQUAL
projects.
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Messages for a gender fair society
January 2008
"MV United" is a Gender Mainstreaming Peer Review which will be hosted by Flanders, in Leuven, on 28th and 29th February 2008. From its title you might think that the event will focus on gender issues in football teams or in company mergers but instead it will be all about the vital role that the media can play in redressing inequality between women and men.
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Twinning project boosts gender equality
January 2008
Linking gender equality experts from Estonia and France, an EU funded twinning project is promoting gender equality as an asset for companies. A first report compiled by the French experts presents a wealth of good practice.
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Anticipating Change – Conference results
January 2008
The Athens conference report on effective approaches to
lifelong learning and age management has been published
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The Power of Networks
January 2008
"Gender Mainstreaming – Learning from EQUAL for the ESF".
This is the title of a brand new German publication which presents the results
of a specific evaluation of gender mainstreaming throughout the lifespan of
EQUAL in Germany. Under the same title, 10th December 2007, a seminar
in Berlin brought together around 50 key players from the realm of EQUAL and the
ESF.
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"I would not be here today without EQUAL"
December 2007
That statement could have been made by any of the participants who were invited to, and subsequently attended, the
Belfast final event in the range of EQUAL Mainstreaming Platforms orchestrated by the European Commission and organised
by the Member States.
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More microfinance - an escalator out of exclusion
November 2007
The more flexible use of EU funding streams could help the
microfinance sector to grow rapidly, and thus to combat problems of social
inequality, a workshop at the Regional Policy Open Days heard.
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Structural Fund possibilities for social enterprise
November 2007
Support for social enterprise at regional level can bring
real dividends in terms of new jobs, social inclusion and better public
services, participants at an Open Days workshop learnt.
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Better coordination to tackle urban deprivation
November 2007
'Increased flexibility of EU funding streams could increase
the sustainability of efforts to tackle the growing problems of social
inequalities, argued participants at a Regional Policy Open Days workshop.
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Opening up Entrepreneurship to many more
people
November 2007
'Communities of Practice' offer a way to take the
experimental work from EQUAL forward into the next round of Structural Funds to
generate inclusive entrepreneurship policies that work for all groups of
society, according to one Regional Policy Open Days workshop.
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EQUAL's Tool
for Inclusive Entrepreneurship: seven more supporters
November 2007
Oviedo in the North of Spain provided the venue for two
days of intense discussions about how to extend EQUAL's "Community of Practice"
on Inclusive Entrepreneurship to more Member States and Regions during the vital
transition period between the old and new Structural Fund Programmes.
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Parliamentary intergroup discusses social franchising
November 2007
The European Social Franchise Network, a spin-off from the EQUAL's work, was launched at the meeting of the European Parliament's interest
group on the social economy last month. Plans are now going
ahead to establish a new interest group specifically on this topic, and to hold
a conference at the European Parliament in February 2008.
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Regions Active in Discussing Active Ageing
November 2007
Active Ageing in Open Days
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Anticipating Change: effective approaches to lifelong
learning and age management
November 2007
A European EQUAL Conference on the theme of Age Management
and Lifelong Learning will be held on 6 and 7 December 2007 in Athens
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Empowerment, Diversity and Vocational Integration
November 2007
A Policy Forum to be held in Belfast, on 29 and 30 November
2007, will be a real encounter between all the key actors on the integration
pathway.
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EQUAL good practices feed top level research
November 2007
Debbie Tolson, Professor of Gerontological Nursing at Glasgow Caledonian
University (GCU) and initiator of an EQUAL project in the field of care for the
elderly receives the 2007 media
award "Best of Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing" of the American Honor
Society of Nursing.
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EQUAL lessons in rural and urban restructuring
November 2007
Restructuring by EQUAL @ Open Days
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The role of EQUAL in creating successful flexicurity
pathways
November 2007
Over the last year or so, the word "flexicurity" has
suddenly entered into common parlance – at least in the Brussels policy arena.
Although flexicurity is by no means an entirely new concept, the debate on its
elements and on how to translate its principles into reality has intensified in
recent years.
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Networking to Promote Youth Employment
October 2007
Sunny Cyprus was the setting for this EQUAL event that addressed some of the
issues facing young people today and, in particular, the problem of unemployment
that is experienced by 17.4% of all EU citizens between the ages of 15 and 24.
During the event, participants expressed their commitment to extending existing
provision for young people and so a network, or community of practice, will be
established to enable these participants and others to continue the debate and
to track how programmes can be continually improved.
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Putting gender on the map of European regional policy
October 2007
Amongst the 150 workshop of this year's Open Days one was focused on
integrating the gender perspective into local and regional policies. True to the
slogan of this European Week of Regions and Cities the workshop showed how
policy makers, business leaders and gender quality experts are "making it
happen" and how gender mainstreaming can boost territorial development.
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Progress in Combating Human Trafficking
October 2007
As part of its ongoing efforts to disseminate innovative products, EQUAL
Portugal promoted the CAIM Project's products at its Monitoring
Committee Meeting, held in June in Lisbon. Among the Project's products was the
new Training Toolkit for the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking Women
for Sexual Exploitation.
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Heading for the Open Sea
October 2007
"Innovative EQUAL approaches that are addressing the persisting gender
inequalities in employment and society will soon have to face the challenges of
the open sea", said Lucia Scarpitti when she opened the 3rd Peer
Review of the European Community of Practice on gender mainstreaming on behalf
of the Italian Ministry of Labour. Referring to the achievements of EQUAL, Scarpitti expressed her confidence that the new models will brave the waves and
prove their validity in the new ESF programmes.
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Helping the Media to reflect a Much
wider Audience
October 2007
At the very beginning of October,
members of the European Broadcasting Union's Intercultural and Diversity Group
and representatives of certain EQUAL Development Partnerships spent a very
constructive two days in Budapest, putting the final touches to a Diversity
Toolkit. There was also time to review the arrangement for the launch of this
resource and to exchange new ideas about promoting diversity in the media.
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Transnational Co-operation Contacts in ESF Programmes start networking and
cooperating
October 2007
The Commission organised a kick-off meeting for the network
of nominated contact points for transnational cooperation on 12 and 13 September
2007 to ensure that effective mechanisms and procedures for making it work were
put in place. The main purpose of this meeting was to stimulate networking
between the contact points, by exchanging plans on the implementation of the
transnational dimension of national and regional ESF Operational Programmes, and
by discussing their tasks, tools and communication.
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Action against Ethnic Discrimination in the Labour Market
October 2007
Tackling discrimination against immigrants and ethnic minorities has been the
major focus of a large number of EQUAL Development Partnerships. A
European Mainstreaming Platform on this issue was initiated, in 2006, by EQUAL
Managing Authorities in France, Germany and Sweden and this process will
culminate in a conference, in Paris, on 22 and 23 November 2007.
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ESF outcomes to feed regional policy
October 2007
The 5th "OPEN DAYS - European Week of Regions and Cities" will be held
between 8th and 11th October 2007 in Brussels. Around 5,000 people - including
regional policy experts and practitioners - will participate. The European
Commission's Directorate General Employment, Social Affairs and Equal
Opportunities is an active partner in the event and will be organising several workshops related to ESF
activities and results.
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Quality in the third sector
September 2007
The Portuguese third sector held a conference in June 2007 to exchange
experiences with two key European initiatives: the way Spanish NGOs have
developed a home-grown quality standard to suit their size and value-led nature,
and the way the British government enthusiastically supports social enterprise.
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Shaping Migration Strategies
September 2007
On 19 and 20 September 2007, eight EQUAL Development
Partnerships have once more shown that transnational cooperation can bring the
debate on asylum and migration to a higher level. They
organised a very successful conference in the European Parliament.
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EQUAL support model for women with cancer wins national Internet award
September 2007
Frauen Computer Zentrum Berlin (FCZB), coordinator of the German
EQUAL Development Partnership (DP) "Gender Mainstreaming in the Information
Society" has received the prestigious national award "Wege ins Netz" (Ways to
the Internet) that honours innovative models which support disadvantaged groups to
use the Internet.
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Gender Mainstreaming: an asset in business and economic life
September 2007
Italy is championing the integration of the gender dimension into the world of business and economy. It will host a Peer Review on 4th and 5th October 2007 in Florence and share and discuss good practices achieved by companies and in the context of the social dialogue with other Member States.
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Youth and Employment: the lessons to be learned
September 2007
More than ever, the issue of youth employment remains on the
top of the European agenda as highlighted by the recent
communication from the Commission. The first ever European-level event on young
people in the EQUAL Community Initiative will take place in Cyprus at the end of
September 2007. It is intended that the lessons learned in EQUAL should be
mainstreamed and used to feed the new ESF Operational Programmes in the Member
States.
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A chance to celebrate female talent
September 2007
With the Dutch Centre for Gender and Diversity in the lead,
EQUAL partners from four Member States have joined forces to organise the
W.I.S.E.R. festival. W.I.S.E.R. stands for more Women in Science,
Education and Research and the event, which will take place on
4th and 5th October 2007 in Maastricht, will be a huge kind of fair promoting
gender equality in these three sectors.
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EQUAL paves the way for socially responsible restructuring
August 2007
In a recent presentation to the
CEDEFOP
conference on Guidance for Workforce Development, held in Thessaloniki on
25/26 June 2007, the EQUAL programme had the opportunity to present its
experience of socially responsible restructuring, addressing the needs of
individuals as well as the regions and localities.
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The 50+ in 2050
July 2007
A European conference was organised last month in Gothenburg
on the situation of people aged 50+, people whose
experience, skills and active employment participation will play an increasingly
important role in the labour market between now and 2050.
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Bridging the gap between enterprise and
social policy
July 2007
'Putting the heart into the Lisbon process', the EQUAL
policy forum on inclusive and social entrepreneurship, held in Hanover on
4-6 June 2007, successfully brought the ideas of entrepreneurship and social
inclusion together in a way not seen before. It laid the foundations of a
platform for inclusive entrepreneurship in the new Structural Funds
programming period.
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Prevention or Re-imprisonment?
June 2007
This was the unambiguous question posed by the organisers
of the EQUAL Policy Forum on (Ex)-offenders that was held in Warsaw, on 21
and 22 June 2007. During these two days, representatives from EQUAL
Managing Authorities, National Support Structures and Development
Partnerships were joined by representatives
of criminal justice and penal systems, employers, educationalists and
non-governmental organisations. Together they concentrated on ways of taking
forward the successful approaches to reintegration that have been pioneered
by EQUAL.
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Databases on the move
June 2007
Since '.eu' has become available for web addresses in Europe,
Commission websites have been changing their internet addresses (or URLs). On 26
June, it was the turn of the
EQUAL Common database
(ECDB) to make the change. Don't forget to update your bookmarks and/or favourites.
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Moving gender equality towards the mainstream policy process
June 2007
Learning from the experience of gender equality bodies and good practices
that have influenced policy development was aim and task of the second Peer
Review of the Community of Practice on Gender Mainstreaming. Hosted by the Irish
Government on 14th and 15th June 2007, the event brought
together key players from old and new Member States.
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Capitalising on Diversity and
Empowerment
June 2007
EQUAL Development Partnerships that have
been working on the themes of diversity and empowerment in 20 different Member
States came together in Belfast, on 13 June. They were joined by representatives
of Managing Authorities and National Support Structures and together the 120
delegates developed the messages to be presented to a Policy Forum that will be
held in the same city, at the end of 2007.
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Promoting the Resettlement of (ex-) offenders in Europe
June 2007
A policy Forum "Prevention or Re-Imprisonment" to be
held on 21-22 June in Warsaw.
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EQUAL promotes the integration of Asylum Seekers in Europe
June 2007
Over 250 persons actively participated in the European Policy Forum on Asylum
entitled "Minimum Standard and Beyond - Towards a dignified standard of living
for asylum seekers in Europe", held from 22 - 24 May in Malmö.
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Age as an opportunity
June 2007
Policies for Active Ageing and age management have come to
the
top of the European agenda due to the debate on the demographic challenge. "Competence 50+ 2007 - Age as an opportunity", a European policy forum on age management
is to be held soon in Sweden.
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Portuguese EQUAL Managing Authority develops innovative method for Product
Validation
June 2007
It considers innovation, empowerment, suitability, usefulness, accessibility,
equality and transferability as the main criteria for analyzing the quality of
products. At a time when Member
States and the European Commission are negotiating operational programs for the
next programming period, 2007-2013, Portuguese EQUAL has promoted a European
session to demonstrate this methodology.
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A driving force for Gender Mainstreaming
June 2007
The second Peer Review of the Community of Practice on Gender Mainstreaming focuses on a dedicated structure within the European Social Fund (ESF) that promotes equality for women and men. The event has been organised as a learning platform on 14th and 15th June 2007, in Dublin and it targets key players from both the new and the old Member States.
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Opening up entrepreneurship to all: coming soon in Hannover
May 2007
The policy forum is approaching: new documents to be
downloaded.
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Creating win-win-situations in European Regions
May 2007
Gender mainstreaming (GM) applied in a systematic way to regional and
local policies can make everybody win: citizens, small local communities, public
and private companies and organisations, big cities and even whole regions. This
was the main message that emerged from the
Peer Review "Gender Mainstreaming: a Tool for Change".
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Planning for EQUALising the Workplace
May 2007
An exchange
event called "EQUALising the Workplace - Diversity in Action" is
scheduled to take place in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 13 June 2007. Before a
policy Forum at the end of the year.
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Minimum standards - and beyond...: heading for Malmö
May 2007
The contribution of EQUAL to a dignified standard of living for asylum
seekers - European Policy Forum - 22-24 May - Sweden
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Getting ready for the Gender Mainstreaming Peer Review in Styria
May 2007
The Peer Review on "Gender
Mainstreaming: a Tool for Change" will be held in Graz, the capital of Styria, on 9-10 May 2007 and a
range of documents that will steer the discussions in each of the respective
workshops have just been made available and can be downloaded.
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One step further to making transnational and interregional cooperation work
in the ESF 2007-2013
April 2007
An "Action plan for facilitating transnational cooperation in
the ESF" was discussed with Member States and Regions during a seminar held on
22nd March 2007. A specific network will be established for managing
Transnational cooperation.
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Ethnic entrepreneurship: breaking the barriers
April 2007
On the 7th of March 2007 around seventy
representatives of EQUAL projects, business support organisations, Danish
authorities and governmental bodies as well as ethnic groups from all over
Europe met in Copenhagen with the explicit aim of "breaking down the barriers"
surrounding ethnic entrepreneurship.
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Social enterprises: equal work and business opportunities
April 2007
A seminar was organised in Helsinki in February. Its objectives were to contribute to the mainstreaming of good practices in social enterprise; to bring new topics into the discussion of social enterprises and their employment potential, especially for the most disadvantaged groups in the labour market
and to broaden discussion by involving policy makers and other stakeholders at
different levels. Full documentation, including the report is available.
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Gender Mainstreaming - a tool for change
March 2007
Styria, one of Austria's nine regions, is championing the integration of a
gender dimension into all the policy fields for which it is responsible. It is
also hosting a Peer Review on 9th and 10th May 2007 in Graz its capital, when it
will share and discuss its good practices with counterparts from other EU
Regions and Member States.
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Towards a dignified standard of living
for asylum seekers
March 2007
A European Policy Forum will be organised in Malmö (Sweden)
from 22 to 24 May 2007 to bring together all the good practices, experiences and
achievements of the EQUAL Asylum Seekers theme, with a view to present these to
a European audience of politicians, decision-makers and media representatives.
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Mainstreaming Outcomes from EQUAL
to combat
Discrimination against Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities
March 2007
Discrimination against
ethnic minorities in the labour market is a daily, and arguably an increasing,
reality in the Union and there is an urgent need for action to redress this
situation. A
very timely new initiative has been launched,
led by France in close cooperation with Germany and Sweden, to share experience
and disseminate good practices emerging from Development Partnerships(DPs) that have
tackled ethnic discrimination in employment.
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Putting the Heart into the Lisbon Process...
March 2007
"Putting the Heart into the Lisbon Process – Strategies for Inclusive
Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise" : a major Policy Forum to be held in Hannover
on the 5 & 6 June 2007.
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Moving from Practice to Policy – EQUAL paves the way for New Approaches to the Resettlement of (Ex)-Offenders
March 2007
Prison Services throughout the European
Union are stretched to the limit. The prison population has risen by
almost 28% over the last 10 years. More than 100 EQUAL Development Partnerships have piloted new
approaches. A European Mainstreaming Programme now
provides a unique opportunity to convince key actors that they should adopt or
adapt the good practices that are emerging from these projects.
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A challenging production process but one with great outcomes
February 2007
The transnational products and tools generated by the coming together
of EQUAL Development Partnerships (DPs), which operate in different Member States, are a
special legacy of this Community Initiative. In the field of gender equality, these policy
recommendations, teaching and training materials, learning and counselling tools or awareness
raising strategies clearly demonstrate the added-value of transnational cooperation.
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Business and employment co-operatives – a launch pad for inclusive entrepreneurship
February 2007
Business and employment co-operatives are the latest thing to hit business
incubation. Since the first was started in 1996, a wave of some 70 has sprung
up. They are present all across France, have crossed the border - there are
eight in Belgium and ten in Sweden - and with EQUAL's help are now spreading
further afield. A conference at the European Parliament has strengthened their
position on the policy map.
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Social economy answers for local development
February 2007
Local development was the theme of the second in the series of mainstreaming
platform in EQUAL's social economy theme, held near Rome in December 2006. Cases
from four countries showed how the social economy can provide an excellent
response to the intractable problems of structural change, unemployment,
addiction, migration and depopulation.
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Reaching EU targets for the over 50s
February 2007
In 2001, the European Union (EU) Member States adopted targets to increase the
share of older workers in employment from an EU average of 40% to 50% by 2010.
Since that time, Member States have been busily working to develop policies and
launch initiatives to reach these targets, changing the way older workers are
perceived in our culture and society, and maximising the role that experienced
workers in the over the age of 50 can play in the labour market. So what
progress has been made against these targets, and what relevant lessons and
examples can be drawn from EQUAL?
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Diversity, the Offspring of a Media Marriage in Dublin
February 2007
Sweden, supported by Finland and Ireland, has brought EQUAL Development Partnerships together with representatives of the European Broadcasting Union's Eurovision Intercultural and Diversity Group to exchange their experiences and to build an Ethnic Diversity Toolkit. The whole idea is to promote diversity in the media and especially in television.
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Shaping Transnational Cooperation in the new ESF Programmes
February 2007
The ESF regulation offers new opportunities for developing and enhancing
cooperation between Member States and Regions. Transnational Cooperation can
help to initiate reforms regarding employment and social inclusion policies and
their delivery through learning from other countries by the way of exchange of
information, sharing of good practice and working together towards common
solutions. Getting this cooperation on track requires an efficient collaboration
from all parties.
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Joining forces for Gender Equality
January 2007
A Community of Practice (CoP) is the driving force that will anchor gender
mainstreaming in the programmes that will be implemented during the next Funding
Period (2007-2013) of the ESF. Seven Member States have joined forces in a group
led by Finland that aims to share and disseminate EQUAL achievements in gender
mainstreaming throughout the EU.
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Restructuring - the Role of Dynamic Regions!
January 2007
On 4 and 5 December 2006 the Restructuring Forum met in
Brussels, uniting around 400 regional and local leaders, social partners,
national representatives and senior European Union officials in a
discussion on how Europe's regions can make best use of EU funding to adapt to
economic change. Under the working title "How dynamic regions face
restructuring and the role of the European Social Fund and other Structural
Funds", this third meeting of the Forum looked in particular at
restructuring from a territorial perspective and the crucial role played by the
European Social Fund and European Regional Development Fund in
supporting these developments.
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News from the Care Front
January 2007
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, the only scientist amongst the German female
Nobel Prize winners, has invested her prize money in a
foundation that
supports outstanding young, women scientists who have children. To enable these
young mothers to have both a successful career in research and a satisfying
family life, the foundation pays a monthly allowance of 400 Euro that is to be
used for hiring a child carer and/or a home helper.
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Czech thematic networks point out interesting projects outcomes
January 2007
After almost a year of the existence of national thematic networks in the Czech Republic all the relevant actors attended a nationwide conference to summarize the progress achieved so far. The most praised part of the conference was a
"fair" of successful projects. Four of these interesting projects are presented in detail.
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Evaluating EQUAL in Prague
January 2007
The transnational EQUAL Evaluation Learning Seminar took place end of November in Prague. The main goals of the seminar were to compare results of the
EQUAL evaluations as well as to intensify information exchange and experience in
the evaluation of EQUAL principles. The upcoming transnational project
of the Czech EQUAL Managing Authority, the "EQUAL evaluation Community of
Inquiry and Practice" (EQUAL eCIP), was also introduced at the seminar.
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