Sustainable Development Goal 5 calls on the international community to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Although this means that everyday should focus in on the rights and challenges of women, March 8th calls for an additional focus, and celebration. This year’s International Women’s Day has the theme “Think equal, build smart, innovate for change.” The theme will focus on innovative ways in which we can advance gender equality and the empowerment of women, particularly in the areas of social protection systems, across to public services and infrastructure.
In yesterday’s post we looked at what some of the PRME Signatories, but in particular the PRME Champion schools, are doing in relation to Women. Click here to see part 1.
PRME Champion Glasgow Caledonian University received a Bronze Award in formal recognition of its commitment to promoting gender equality. The Athena SWAN Charter was developed to support the advancement and promotion of the careers of women in science, engineering, technology, mathematics and medicine in higher education and research. The work of the Women in the Scottish Economy (WISE) research centre takes an innovative multidisciplinary approach to gender analysis of economic and public policy both in Scotland and internationally. It launched a report that found that closing the gender gap could boost Scotland’s economy by £17 billion. ‘Gender Equality Pays: the economic case for addressing women’s labour market inequality’ is authored by the WiSE Research Centre’s Emily Thomson and PhD student Naveed Hakeem.
PRME Champion Winchester Business School’s Women in Digital Enterprise is a project promoting the digital growth of women led businesses. The aim is to support 100 women-led businesses to be set up and to grow. Through six workshops, the programme introduces delegates to new ways to think about business growth, collaboration and utilising skills to help them achieve their growth ambitions. It is specifically designed to help women led businesses overcome traditional ways of working that do not take full account of the powerful dynamics of digital ‘connectivity’ with respect to enlarging their potential to make a lasting social and economic contribution. The workshops are free to attend.
Great Lakes Institute of Management in India has several projects focused on empowering women in the community. One of their projects promotes the formation and support of Self Help Groups for women. These aim to bring significant improvement in the social and economic status of the women. The Institute provides several workshops and training sessions for the women, including every year on International Women’s Day.
PRME Champion Peter J. Tobin College of Business, St. John’s University has a number of programmes focused on empowering women. The GLOBE programme provides outreach to women globally with the provision of micro loans. TCB is engaged in a number of extra-curricular initiatives designed to address the challenge of women’s empowerment described in SDG 5. This includes a Women’s Alumnae Leadership Breakfast and a Women’s Marketing academy for Business. For students, business faculty provide mentorship and workshops as part of the St. John’s University Women in Leadership Program, including: Women in Action, Leadership 101, Women’s EmpowHERment seminar, and Women in Leadership: Stress to Success. These sessions serve women of all majors and provide them with the opportunity to connect and network across departments to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing women transitioning from the classroom to the marketplace in the 21st century
PRME Champion University of St. Gallen in Switzerland has several programmes including a postexperience Diploma Programme “Women Back to Business”. This program is designed for women who want to re-enter the business world. It provides them with an executive management education that enables them to re-enter the job market or to pursue a more challenging position. This is achieved through career coaching, skills training, workshops and practical experience in a company, public organization or NGO. The participants develop the skills and competences required to lead projects and work in middle management positions. The German program in its 11th year and the English program in its 3rd year. St. Gallen also has a number of concrete goals listed in their SIP report relating to gender equality on campus including plans to improve “leaky pipeline” among professors through a focus on female appointments as well as a gender portal for staff.
PRiMEtime 