Colourful Children

Associação igualdade.pt

Associação igualdade.pt is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation that aims to promote equality among all citizens. It includes promoting gender equality, preventing and combating violence against women, gender and domestic violence, and promoting LGBTI rights as human rights.

The Associação igualdade.pt was founded on September 10, 2015, by a group of people interested in and affinity with these matters. Its founding group intends to intervene actively in these fields of action to eradicate all forms of discrimination and build a more just society. It has its workspace at Cowork in Torres Vedras, Portugal.

The Associação igualdade.pt started in January 2020 to coordinate the development, and during the next three years, of the project “boys and girls – equality and non-violence”. It aims to primary the prevention of violence against women and domestic violence and promote a culture of non-violence, human rights, equality, and non-discrimination, involving the intervention of the entire educational community of preschool and primary school in the Médio Tejo region. We are working with eight school clusters, comprehending almost 60 classes and 1000 children. CIG/POISE/Portugal 2020/FSE finances this project. To see more info about this project, please visit https://menin-s.pt

Associação igualdade.pt.pt was also coordinating since the beginning of September 2018, and for three years, the European project funded by Erasmus+ (KA201) “Colourful Children: Promote Gender Equality at Preschool Education Level”.

Associação Igualdade.pt recently started (June 2021) to diagnose in 15 municipalities that belong to the Alto Alentejo region to define Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination Action Plans.

Associação igualdade.pt is also involved in the follow-up, monitoring and evaluation of a training project for strategic audiences promoted by Administração Regional de Saúde do Norte, IP., between November 2020 and December 2021. CIG/POISE/Portugal2020/FSE finances this project.

In all the projects presented, Associação igualdade.pt was responsible for the design of the project and the preparation of the application processes.

CIEG-ISCSP-ULisboa

The CIEG is a pioneering research center, the only one in Portugal dedicated entirely to gender studies. It was created in 2012 and was rated excellent in 2015, in the international evaluation of the FCT. This recognition is due to its intense activity and its capacity to involve, in a short period, 40 researchers from 14 knowledge areas and 13 universities (17 members with a Ph.D., 6 non-PhD members, and 16 collaborators).
CIEG has many achievements, some of them and very summarize, in Research: 20 completed research projects (10 international and 10 national) and 9 ongoings (3 international and 6 national) projects involving more than 2 million euros of funding; Published 43 articles in scientific journals: 23 international articles (+6 envoys and 7 accepted / in the press) and 10 national ones (+ 4 envoys); 12 books: 2 with international circulation (+1 in the press) and 10 with national circulation (+8 in the press); 43 chapters of books: 10 with international circulation (+5 in the press) and 33 with national circulation (+12 in the press); including: 98, 24 research reports, 8 dictionary and encyclopedia entries (+1 in the press), 1 manual and various research papers, abstracts and brochures.
CIEG also organized several conferences on a national level and the 1st CIEG International Congress (Gender Studies in Debate: Paths, Challenges and Interdisciplinary Perspectives) in 2016, which brought together 270 researchers from different parts of the world (40 from Portugal and 230 from other countries: 135 European, 45 Latin American, 50 from North America, Africa, Asia and Australia).
The evaluation process of this project was a responsibility of CIEG-ISCSP-ULisboa.

Ayuntamiento de Murcia

Murcia City Hall, with +/- 450M€ annual budget and +/- 3.500 municipal employees, supporting in our municipal competences CEIP (Public Preschool and Primary School) 116 centres and CC (Private school – offering preschool, and/or primary school and/or high school) 45 centres, having 32.419 students in the primary school cycle (6 to 12 years of age). Especially relevant is our experience in the ERASMUS+ “Colourful Children” – Promoting Gender Equality in preschools – project, and the DEAR Project “Foodwave” dissemination and awareness raising in youth regarding health and nutrition. Other experience includes our participation in programmes of ERDF European territorial cooperation, Interreg med, Sudoe and ERDF art. 7; integrated and sustainable urban development. Within the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, Murcia City Hall is part of Urbact III: Interactive Cities, have received the Urbact Good Practice Label and are a phase two partner in the Urbact Transfer Network Innovator, as well as other programmes like International Urban Cooperation (IUC) in which Murcia has a pairing with Solapur (India), URBELAC-III (The Network of European, Latin American and Caribbean Cities for Integrated and Sustainable Urban Development), and the Urban Development Network (UDN). Furthermore, Murcia is a member of Eurocities, where we co-chair the Digital Citizenship Taskforce within the Knowledge Society Forum (KSF), are members of the City Branding Working Group within the Economic Development Forum (EDF) and are members of the core group formed on water management and the Urban Water
Agenda 2030. As well as currently implementing the Murcia Smart City Strategy (8M€ ERDF funded), being awarded best Smart City Model in Spain (2016), and the only City Strategy to be financed in the Murcia Region (2017) with the Strategy called “Murcia 2020” (17,5M€ FEDER funding, urban development), Murcia was a semi-finalist of the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Engaged Cities Award 2019. Murcia has numerous H2020 and LIFE projects, of which various are ongoing; UserCentriCities, ValueWaste, CITYLOOPS, Heatland and AMDRYC4 respectively. Other endeavours, various of which still ongoing, include lifelong learning, other Erasmus plus projects, Europe for citizens, Twinning programmes, peer-learning exchanges, Climathons, etc. as well as a general and active participation in the following
Networks; URBACT, URBELAC, Vice-presidency of CIVINET, Green Digital Charter and NiCE. Also, Murcia has adhered to the Covenant of Majors and is actively working on adapting to climate change CECAP, member of the European Sustainable Cities Platform, and has signed the Basque Declaration and the Green Deal.

Câmara Municipal de Torres Vedras

Very close to Lisbon we are surprised by an area full of attractions for those who like contrasting landscapes, history, sports, gastronomy and friendly people. Torres Vedras, a county with about 80.000 inhabitants, characterized by its agricultural economy and its landscape of vineyards, perfumed by the Atlantic Ocean. With more than 400 km2, this is the largest municipality in the district of Lisbon and has approximately 20 km’s of coastline, beaches composed of exquisite beauty and extension.
The City Council is a public entity, with about 700 employees. As a local authority it is responsible for the approach to citizens, by achieving the principles of information, collaboration, legality and open administration, as well as cutting red tape, efficiency and effectiveness, embodied by methods and management techniques to reconcile economic and financial, social and human criteria. It is an institution with a strong commitment to the regional community, having as areas of intervention: Health, Social Development, Culture, Environment, Geographic Information, Mobility, Territorial Planning, Urbanism, Economics, Civil Protection, Seniors, Youth, Education and Physical Activity.
Through the Division of Education and Physical Activity, pursues, among others, the modernization in education and the strengthening and diversification of educational provision in particular through the development of non-formal education. It has an organizational unit exclusively for the development and management of the educational and physical activity process that covers a city councilor, an officer, 8 senior technicians and 6 administrative assistants.
At the student population of Torres Vedras county level, public, solidarity and private networks, the municipality has about 14.500 students enrolled in the valences of nursery, preschool education, 1st, 2nd and 3rd cycles of primary and secondary education or equivalent. As far as the preschool education is concerned, there was, in the last 15 years, a growth of 24,37% of children entered, reflecting an increase in supply and family needs that occurred, mainly, by the municipality public action and programs to support the public pre-school education expansion. The largest representation in the county is the public network, with 72 public educational institutions on which the municipality has legally defined competences. In this school year, 2018/2019, are attending in 37 preschool educational institutions of the public network, 18 with 1st cycle, 1188 children aged between 3 and 5 years old.
The Municipality of Torres Vedras assumes the investment in Education as strategic and priority for the municipality, in its different aspects, aware that more educated, qualified and enlightened citizens, have greater civic awareness and critical capacity, more tolerance and potential to generate a higher quality social and economic fabric. Thus, and above all, the municipality uses its legal competencies in education field, provided for in Law 159/99, to take the intervention within the framework of its responsibilities: to build, equip and maintain preschools and 1st cycle education establishments ; prepare the educational charter to be integrated into the municipal master plans; create local education councils; ensuring school transport; ensure the management of the canteens of preschool and 1st cycle education establishments; to support children in preschool education and 1st cycle students in the school social action field; support the development of complementary activities of educational action in preschool and 1st cycle education; participate in support for out-of-school education; and to manage non-teaching staff in preschool and 1st cycle education.
The municipalities have the largest share of responsibility in the social, cultural, educational and economic aspects of local life, becoming, therefore, the entities most capable of moving from words to reality of the facts, with regard to Equality between men women’s participation in and representation in political, social, economic and cultural life; to defend their civil and social rights and to promote change in the traditional roles attributed to women and men and the elimination of gender stereotypes
Based on this premise, the municipality started work on equality through the conclusion of a protocol with the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality in 2012 and the appointment of the local councilors for equality in 2013.
In this follow-up, considering also the internal diagnosis and consultation with social partners, as well as the measures outlined for Strategic Area 1 – Integration of the Gender Equality Perspective in the Central and Local Public Administration of the V National Plan for Gender Equality, Citizenship and Non-Discrimination 2014-2017 (V PNI), a document was prepared at the local level – Municipality Plan for Equality of Torres Vedras -, approved at a meeting in July 2015. This Plan has allowed the accomplishment of numerous actions and the implementation of some measures since then. The Plan for Equality is thus organizing a set of principles and rules, so that the work of the municipality is characterized by good equality practices, aimed at their workers and their workers and for those who live or visit our territory.
However, in addition to the assignments transferred to it, the Torres Vedras Municipal Council invest in programs, partnerships and projects that enhance student’s educational success, prevention of school drop-out and exclusion, health, security and citizenship education, establishing partnership networks and adequate resources to respond to the challenges that society is putting us.
It is a goal and will continue to be, to the municipality, to always maintain the unconditional availability to analyse and evaluate problems and to seek answers and educational potential in the permanent dialogue with the educational community and with all local partners.

Comune di Ravenna

Ravenna is an art city located in northern Italy, along with the Adriatic Sea. The surface of the territory is 654 square kilometers. It’s located in the region of Emilia Romagna. Since 1970, the municipality of Ravenna has managed directly 19 preschools (3-6 years) and 16 kindergartens (age 3 months to 3 years). At present, there are 1651 children in preschools (coverage of 50% of the territory’s population) and day care centers have a total of 728 children (33% of the territory’s population).
Of the total number of children between the ages of 3 and 6, 198 children attending the 2 kindergartens in the municipality took a direct part in the project: Polo Lama Sud and Le Ali. There are 172 preschool teachers, and they are municipality employees. Of these, 16 took direct part in the project.
The Municipality has already organized several seminars on gender equality education in the last 6 years. These seminars were attended by several preschool teachers. The county Department of Education has long been working on gender equality issues. Its geographical position is strategic, as there is a port and therefore is a kind of bridge between East and West. The tradition of this territory is to welcome people and try to offer them work opportunities and involve people who want to stay in the city in activities of participatory citizenship.

Härryda Kommun

The municipality of Härryda is situated between Göteborg and Borås in the west of Sweden. The municipality of Härryda belongs to the province of Västergötland in the municipality of Västra Götaland. Stretching almost 15 kilometres from north to south and 30 kilometres from west to east, it has a total area of 290 square kilometres. The forests cover about half of the area and lakes about a twelfth.
The municipality has approximately 450 children’s educators, and from these 40 participated directly in the project. The remaining ones will also be involved in the project through, essentially, the dissemination activity “local workshops”.
It has a Department of development, leisure of young people and public health (UFF) UFF is a department of the Education and Culture Sector of the municipality of Härryda which is responsible for the development of public preschools. UFF was involved in a secondary role, not as a partner, in a project somewhat similar to the Colourful Children project. This project also focused on preschool and how to work with gender issues and critical norms. This project ended in June 2017. We are speaking about the Erasmus + project “Shaking the Habitual”.

APEI

Portuguese Association of Childhood Educators, was an associate partner in this project. Their collaboration in the project was essentially at the level of dissemination activities of the project and its intellectual products at a national level, in Portugal, namely to the children’s educators their associates and to educational establishments (students, teachers) with whom there are active collaborations.
APEI is a professional association of childhood education professionals, created in 1981, non-profit and with the status of public utility, since 2007.
It is an association that aims to promote the professional development of early childhood education professionals, predominantly childhood educators (but also educational assistants, psychologists, therapists, parents, and guardians), through a set of actions developed throughout the national territory, including the autonomous regions of Madeira and Azores, to discuss the curriculum in early childhood education and pedagogical practices of quality.
APEI collaborates with different higher education institutions (universities and polytechnic institutes) responsible for the initial training of early childhood educators and also with the Ministry of Education, in opinions on scientific and pedagogical documents guiding the pedagogical work of the educators and in the definition of national educational policies.

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