femcoop PLUS
I became more open to modern and innovative solutions- Long term impact of project femcoop PLUS on girls in the Austrian-Hungarian border region
What do you see here? A robot, right? Do you have any idea who came up with the idea of it, who made the plans, who execute it? Look deep into your soul, is a man or a woman in your imagination? If you thought about a man sketching the plans of this robot you are still influenced by the decades-long stereotypes of a men’s or women’s jobs. It is not a fault, times are changing, and we want to keep up with the pace of it. Jobs have no gender, and one thing is for sure: youth is the future! Let’s act on it together. This year, in the framework of the European Year of Youth we would like to highlight the precious ideas of the youth.
No one can express their needs better than themselves, so we turned to our projects which kept this age group at the forefront to learn more about the young people’s needs, wishes and vision for their future. This is how we got in touch with Julia Gyarmati, a secondary school girl, who was happy to share her thoughts on her upcoming years of education, interests and wishes. What is the perspective of a girl nowadays in the region?
Julia believes “Equality between people, (protection of) minorities, especially smaller communities with “deviations”, and environmental protection are the topics that I am interested in the most. At the same time access to digitalisation, knowledge of information technology, and possibilities to use such devices should be available to all, regardless of where they live. People should be more acceptable, they should respect each other. And of course, to reach world peace.”
Access to information and technology is paramount, but what about the involvement of women in these topics? Can women participate without facing any obstacles in such jobs?
A significant gender gap persisted throughout the years at all levels in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines in the world. The same trend is to be observed in the Austrian-Hungarian border region in technical professions. Until now the proportion of women in this field is between 10% to 15%.
How to tackle the shortage of qualified staff and increase the number of women in these historically masculine fields at the same time?
The answer to this question lies in projects just like femcoop PLUS. The experienced partnership worked out a rather complex series of technical and experimental activities which included more than 80 workshops, factory tours, and many hours of evaluation and strategy building. The numerous years invested resulted in a cross-border service package for SMEs which was developed by the project partners in Austria and Hungary together with companies and educational institutions and experts in the program regions. The service package contains valuable information on experimental, practice-oriented technical modules for girls and young women in the fields of strength: metal and electrical engineering, energy engineering, IT and process-oriented robotics.
During the project lifespan communication and visibility was of utmost importance. The close cooperation with the region’s universities and continuous involvement of primary and secondary schools were the backbone of their work, this is how our lovely interviewee got in touch with project femcoop PLUS:
“A Hungarian partner of the project femcoop PLUS, a project financed by the Interreg V-A Austria-Hungary Programme approached our school, and, as career guiding, invited those classes that were in the 7th and 8th year of education to the ZalaZone Automotive Proving Ground to introduce some businesses that are traditionally regarded as masculine, to girls.”
Once and for all prejudices and these historical ideas on masculine and feminine jobs should be shredded. Even if technical or engineering professions are not all girls’ cup of tea, the opportunity should be equal to all. Projects, such as femcoop PLUS can support us and policymakers in this job. Showing the opportunities by showing and in a participative manner really makes a difference. As Julia so eloquently said: Thanks to project femcoop PLUS I became more open to modern and innovative solutions (e.g. robotics), and I am more interested in working in a multilingual environment and with people representing various cultures.