Today we celebrate International Women’s Day!

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day!

This year, on March 8th, we celebrate International Women’s Day. The United Nations and UN Women are celebrating the Women’s Day under the theme DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for gender equality.

The United Nations Observance of IWD, under the theme “DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for gender equality, recognizes and celebrates the women and girls who are championing the advancement of transformative technology and digital education. The observance will explore the impact of the digital gender gap on widening economic and social inequalities, and it will also spotlight the importance of protecting the rights of women and girls in digital spaces and addressing online and ICT-facilitated gender-based violence.

The strong technological integration consists of attending a course, calling loved ones, making a bank transaction, or booking a medical appointment. Everything currently goes through a digital process. However, 37% of women do not use the internet and 259 million fewer women have access to the Internet than men, even though they account for nearly half the world’s population.

Bringing women into technology results in more creative solutions and has greater potential for innovations that meet women’s needs and promote gender equality. Their lack of inclusion, by contrast, comes with massive costs.

If women are unable to access the Internet and do not feel safe online, they are unable to develop the necessary digital skills to engage in digital spaces, which diminishes their opportunities to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related fields By 2050, 75% of jobs will be related to STEM areas. Yet today, women hold just 22% of positions in artificial intelligence, to name just one.

ILO Joint Programme

Together with the UN Women, the International Labour Organization‘s programme promotes decent employment for women through inclusive growth policies and investments in care. The programme brings together the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, and the United Nations specialized agency devoted to advancing social justice and promoting decent work, as a demonstration of the UN working as One to achieve gender-equitable development outcomes.

The UN Women-ILO Joint Programme (JP) is focused on achieving three key outcomes:

• Creating the political consensus for the adoption of macro-level economic policy accelerators that support gender-equitable inclusive growth and more and better jobs for women, through evidence-based policy analysis and advocacy, technical advice and capacity strengthening.
• Adopting sectoral and industrial policies that tackle occupational and sectoral segregation and enhance women’s access to decent employment opportunities, through policy advice, capacity development and technical support.
• Ensuring that investments in care service provision – in health, long-term care, and education are costed, financed and implemented through policy advice, capacity development and technical support.

EFDN has launched several projects related to education and employability including social inclusion and cohesion in which women are involved in.

STEM Network

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It’s a field that helps children learn how to program, make codes, and understand technological devices. Statistics tell us there are currently more than a million job vacancies in the STEM industry, while at the same time only 16% of college students graduate in STEM fields or subjects. Demand for STEM jobs has increased threefold between 2000 and 2010, and continues to grow, with many new fields and professions emerging each day.

Therefore, EFDN launched its EFDN STEM Network at Stamford Bridge, in London, in September 2019, together with 15 clubs and the Pro League. The first meeting was a coming together of like-minded, European football clubs and foundations, who wish to explore STEM education as a new community programme area and take their first steps towards driving innovation in STEM education through football.

Thanks to this project, the girls will have an opportunity to dive into the STEM field where they can gain knowledge that will be used in the future for their professional development.

Special Champions League

The EFDN Special Champions League is a new project of EFDN that provides a safe, inclusive, and active environment where young people over 15 years old with an intellectual disability can come together and play football at a level they are all comfortable with. EFDN organizes 2 to 4 European Football Festivals per year that are hosted by different EFDN members throughout the year. The tournaments are non-competitive and a way to promote greater social inclusion and acceptance of disability football within European Football clubs and the wider European population.

Through football, EFDN want to get more young people with intellectual disabilities physically and socially active in their communities and increase integration and inclusion within society. The EFDN Special Champions League has been shaped in line with the Special Olympics philosophy, and it will provide opportunities for participants to improve their physical health, increase their confidence, meet new people, learn about others, and establish social bonds. The Special Champions League is co-funded by Erasmus+.