Florence visit photo gallery

Fourth meeting day in Florence - Thursday, 23 Nov

Activities done during the fourth day:

- Brainstorming on new proposal ideas to submit on the next calls (LLP – Lifelong Learning Programme 2007 – 2013): all partners agreed to participate and collaborate in future projects on different topics,

- Definition and validation of the activities timetable,

- Definition of the female entrepreneurs target group who will be interviewed,

- Meetings with Local Stakeholders: CISL – Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori– Coordinamento Regionale delle Donne (Italian Confederation of Trade Unions - The Regional Coordination Women), D.ssa Claudia Russo. The Regional Coordination Women promotes Equal Opportunity policies within the labour market, the reconciliation work/family, etc.
She explained the support of the Confederation of Trade Unions for the enterprises, the initiatives promoting equal opportunity in work places (public and private), and the difficulties to promote the reconciliation between working life and family for women especially in the private sector. Instead in public bodies there are kindergarten to support women with children.
The meeting went off according to the agenda and with fruitful results.

Third meeting day in Florence - Wednesday, 22 Nov. 2006

Activities done during the third meeting day:

- Cultural and historical visit in Florence: guided sightseeing tour, during the morning, of the town to churches, historical buildings, monument, etc. with a tourist guide. The visit was an enjoyable moment to know Florence and its historic/cultural/artistic aspect.

- Development of ideas on the questionnaire to submit to the female entrepreneurs: all partners defined the structure of the questionnaire in 3 sections. We discussed on the opportunity to propose open or closed questions. In order to compare the data on the female entrepreneurs life/working experience it seems better to use closed questions. By other side, with open questions the interviewes would be more free to explain their personal experiences without a fixed path. Maybe the best solution would be the presence of closed questions for objective data (personal data, work experience data) and open questions for personal comments.

- Meeting with local stakeholders: visit by CNA - Confederazione Nazionale Artigianato Piccola e Media Impresa, D.ssa Licia Papini: illustration of the structure and main activities of CNA – Handicraft and SME Association of Florence. The association represent a valid point of contact for all active and dynamic enterprises operating in the province of Florence. The meeting represented an interesting moment of comparison and consideration on concrete initiatives and experiences in the Tuscany economic tissue.

- At the evening with all the partners we had a dinner in a typical Florentine restaurant where we eat Tuscany speciality in a relaxed atmosphere.

Second meeting day in Florence - Tuesday, 21 Nov. 06

Activites done during the second meeting day:

- Introduction to the local context to the foreign partners and meetings with Local Stakeholders: explanation of the practices and legislation on the female entrepreneurship in Tuscany and on reconciliation between working life and family during the visits by the Responsible of the Female Entrepreneurship and Gender Policies Sector of the Tuscany Region, D.ssa Antonella Turci, and by the Regional Counsellor of Equal Opportunity, Adv. Marina Capponi.


With the support of an interpreter, Suzi Jenkins, the institutional representatives illustrated initiatives and projects carried out by the regional authority at European and local level,


- Illustration of the local context about the female entrepreneurship: visit by AIDDA (Associazione Imprenditrici e Donne dirigenti di Azienda), D.ssa. Orietta Malvisti Moretti.

AIDDA is a non profit association representing the first association founded in Italy with the aim to support the engagement of women in the economic and social sector. The president of the association illustrated the association’s activities and agreed on an active involvement in the FEMALE project with the participation of female entrepreneurs as testimonials of their life/working experience. During the visit we met women entrepreneurs who have been carrying out a business successfully.

First meeting day in Florence - Monday, 20 Nov. 2006

These are the activities done during the first day of the Florence meeting:

- Presentation of the partner organizations to improve the mutual knowledge: each partner presented its own organization and its main activities,

- Definition of the responsibility and functions of the partners: each partner will involve its local network to implement the activities aimed at collecting and exchanging

information and best practices during all the project,
- Elaboration of ideas on the questionnaire to submit to the female entrepreneurs: each partner contributed to the definition of items and ideas on the questionnaire scheme to submit to the 8 referents representing the main target group of the project,

- Definition of detailed work methodologies and tools: all partners agreed on the elaboration of the questionnaire scheme and the identifying of 8 female entrepreneurs before February 2007. The scheme of the interview has to be prepared following the topics defined and validated within February 2007 through e-mail.

The project aims

During their working life, and particularly in business, women often face different barriers and circumstances than men, particularly in rural and disadvantages areas. The aim of the proposal is to foster female entrepreneurship spirit through an exchange of experiences and best practice in Adult education. The objectives will be:

• favour the diffusion between women of different cultural, social and economic aspects linked to business activities carried out by women through the dissemination of their success stories;
• The exchange of female entrepreneurs best practices and experiences between different local and European stakeholders (adult education agencies, public bodies, associations, private companies, university, foundations, civil society);
• analyse the didactical and educational informal and non formal approaches linked to the success stories examined involving adult learners (entrepreneurs and personnel working in the partnership structures).

Activities:

• Local stakeholders awareness of the project aim and involvement;
• Identification and involvement of at least eight business women in each country as testimonials;
• Best practice collection through the submission of a structured questionnaire to the entrepreneur groups;
• Collection and analysis of informal and non formal educational paths followed by the entrepreneurs;
• Collection of support and funding laws for the self entrepreneurship;
• Valorisation and dissemination of the achieved results (Publication, CD Rom, web sites, seminaries, final conference) .

The activities will be tightly linked to other local initiatives (Conferences, seminars, workshops) carried out by the involved stakeholders to foster dissemination of the results.

Kick-off meeting

Dear partners,

this is the first post in this blog dedicated to our small/great project!
I'm very happy about the kick-off meeting we attended here in Florence from 20th to 23rd of November and I hope you had the same feeling.
I'm sure we'll achieve excellent results working together.
The blog will let us to share our experience in "real time", upload comments , photos and every kind of information we think it's usefull for the project.
We can also link this blog to our websites and divulgate it as soon as it will be filled out with the initial documents.

For the moment, all the very best
Gianluca