[Brussels, 23 September]
From 3 until 6 September 2015 the European Women’s Lobby organised in Brussels the AGORA, the first ever young feminist summer school in Europe!
• What happened?
We wanted to set up a space to exchange, to inspire and to reinforce the skills. In this perspective, the programme has been co-created with the participants upstream and during the AGORA. From the application forms’ inputs, we identified the main skills and issues on which our 50 participants seemed to have an interest.
It came out that the main skills were: media and communication training, lobbying and campaigning (including online campaigning), tackling opposition and public speaking, networking and facilitation.
And the main issues: migrants and minority women (roma, refugees, minorities); intersectionality (anti-racism, LGBTQI, engaging men); violence against women (sexual violence, street harassment,), sexism in culture and the media / using arts and culture as a tool for advancing feminism; women in power (women in politics, in decision making, parity, pay gap); sexual and reproductive health and rights.
The AGORA took place in Amazone, a center supporting women’s organisations in Brussels, and was facilitated by the EWL team and two experienced consultants Maria Cristina Temmink and Maaike Boumans.
AGORA 2015
On Thursday 3 September, participants got to know each other, starting to learn how their peers were fighting inequality across Europe and defined together the programme in itself according to their expectations and needs. They have had the chance to visit the European Parliament and to meet two MEPs, Ulrike Lunacek, Green, Vice President of the EP and Marie Arena, S&D, member of the FEMM Committee. This first day ended with a welcome and fundraising evening at the bar “Bravo”.
111 2
On Friday 4 September, participants who were keen to host a workshop proposed themselves and the rest of the group chose which sessions to attend.
The choice of workshops was extremely diverse:
– Public speaking and winning the argument
– How to deal with verbal attacks during a feminist discussion?
– Campaign about self-esteem and body confidence
– Street action on the refugee crisis
– Inclusive feminism: bridging the gap between theory and practice
– How to defend reproductive rights in a conservative context?
– Women and Lesbian Trans Inter Queer in the refugee crisis in Europe
– How to integrate anti-racism into our feminism?
– Online Campaigning
– Telling stories with images (women’s body in photography)
– Blog for young European feminists
– Legal obligation to eradicate gender stereotypes in international treaties
– Domestic violence and violence against women
– Women under ISIS captivity
– Violence against women: testimonials
– Women’s political participation
– How to engage men in gender equality?
– Feminism & poetry and history: writing and giving a voice to women
On Saturday 5 September, the AGORA welcomed two external trainers: Laura Shields who proposed a media training and Elisabeth Gehrke who proposed a workshop called “master’s suppression technique”. The day ended with a feminist party in the EWL secretariat office!
Finally, on Sunday the 6th, the group gathered a last time to debrief on the passed days, summarised the initiatives that started in the AGORA and made recommendations to the EWL.
• What came out?
Participants seemed very satisfied with this first edition.
According to one of them, Isabella Borrelli, a 25-year-old photo-journalist from Italy “it was a great challenge, a great week full of ideas, discussion, smiles, anger, inspirations and friendship.” She relates her story on her blog and shares the wonderful pictures she took.
Another one, Claudia Shute, 23, wrote an article on her blog to share her experience:
“I have just returned from probably one of the best trips abroad of my life. (…) The 5 day training and sharing course that hosted 50 feminists was organised by the European Women’s Lobby and reached far beyond any of my expectations. (…) Here I was safe from being judged as a political fake, and I was welcomed into a community united by a passion for women’s rights and feminism. It is not every day that such an experience presents itself. (…) I have found it difficult to relay my involvement in the event, without bursting into a song of superlatives; “Amazing! Brilliant! Just incredible!”. (…) How do you describe a life changing, defying, empowering and inspiring time of your life, where days and nights rolled into one another, and discussion and brains did not stop ticking? (…) The summer school reminded me how powerful we can be when we join together in the name of one common purpose. It was refreshing to meet such strong characters from all over the world, to hear their stories and their plights for justice. When the time drew closer for breaking up our safe hub, everybody was visibly sad yet very grateful for the rare opportunity that we had shared. There was a common feeling and conviction that no matter where we feminists are in the world, no matter what we are fighting for, and no matter how lonely we may at times feel, we have each other’s support. No woman is ever alone.”333
After these 4 days, many projects have been launched, from the blog “European Young Feminists” which has been created with the will “to build a place for feminists all over Europe, to learn about the movement in other countries, connect and share the love”, to a website on European feminists supporting refugees or also a photo-project with participant’s portrait to encourage young feminists all over the world.
Besides, we asked participants what main recommendations they could make to us in order to improve potential next AGORAs. One thing is for sure: we all wish to have a 2016 edition!
• Why a feminist summer school?
The EWL has witnessed a new generation of young feminists rising up, innovating and rebooting the fight for equality! A lot of new organisations, initiatives, and campaigns have been flourishing throughout Europe. We saw many opportunities to strengthen the connection between these activists across Europe and with EWL itself. Therefore, as a creative way to bridge this gap and hear the voice of young feminists, we decided to organise the first European Feminist Summer School, which aimed to:
– Reconnect and reinforce young European women’s activism
– Set up a creative space for young feminist change agents
– Build solidarity and empower young feminist activists
– Work across borders to amplify feminism in Europe and the feminist network
– Enable the EWL to know more about the interests and needs of young feminists and bring these more into the center of EWL’s future strategy and actions
• Who?
We launched the application process in June and selected 50 self-defined women aged between 18 and 30, feminist activists and living in Europe. The selection was based on applicant’s commitment to women’s rights and gender equality, their motivation to participate in the Agora, specific skills or knowledge that they could bring and/or would like to learn more about.
In the end, we have had around 26 nationalities represented: Austrian, Armenian, Albanian, Belgian, UK, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Iranian, Irish, Italian, Kosovar, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Scottish, Slovak, Slovenian and Turkish.
18 women were aged between 18 and 25 and 32 between 25 and 30. Workers in NGOs, in politics, feminist activists, bloggers, artists: they were all committed to gender equality and women’s rights.
Written by Julie Chrétiennot, AGORA Coordinator
Accessibility
Accessibility modes
Epilepsy Safe Mode
Dampens color and removes blinks
This mode enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
Visually Impaired Mode
Improves website's visuals
This mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
Cognitive Disability Mode
Helps to focus on specific content
This mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
ADHD Friendly Mode
Reduces distractions and improve focus
This mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
Blindness Mode
Allows using the site with your screen-reader
This mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.
Online Dictionary
Readable Experience
Content Scaling
Default
Text Magnifier
Readable Font
Dyslexia Friendly
Highlight Titles
Highlight Links
Font Sizing
Default
Line Height
Default
Letter Spacing
Default
Left Aligned
Center Aligned
Right Aligned
Visually Pleasing Experience
Dark Contrast
Light Contrast
Monochrome
High Contrast
High Saturation
Low Saturation
Adjust Text Colors
Adjust Title Colors
Adjust Background Colors
Easy Orientation
Mute Sounds
Hide Images
Virtual Keyboard
Reading Guide
Stop Animations
Reading Mask
Highlight Hover
Highlight Focus
Big Dark Cursor
Big Light Cursor
Cognitive Reading
Navigation Keys
Voice Navigation
Accessibility Statement
womenlobby.org
September 1, 2024
Compliance status
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience,
regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level.
These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible
to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific
disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML,
adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Screen-reader and keyboard navigation
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with
screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive
a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements,
alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website.
In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels;
descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups),
and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag
for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology.
To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on
as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
Disability profiles supported in our website
Epilepsy Safe Mode: this profile enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
Visually Impaired Mode: this mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
Cognitive Disability Mode: this mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
ADHD Friendly Mode: this mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
Blindness Mode: this mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.
Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired): this profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments
Font adjustments – users, can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust the spacing, alignment, line height, and more.
Color adjustments – users can select various color contrast profiles such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap color schemes of titles, texts, and backgrounds, with over seven different coloring options.
Animations – person with epilepsy can stop all running animations with the click of a button. Animations controlled by the interface include videos, GIFs, and CSS flashing transitions.
Content highlighting – users can choose to emphasize important elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only.
Audio muting – users with hearing devices may experience headaches or other issues due to automatic audio playing. This option lets users mute the entire website instantly.
Cognitive disorders – we utilize a search engine that is linked to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and others.
Additional functions – we provide users the option to change cursor color and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions.
Browser and assistive technology compatibility
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).
Notes, comments, and feedback
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
3rd Party Cookies
This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.
Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.
Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!