Looking back over the EWL Political Mentoring Network: two inspiring years of action for gender equality and diversity!

[Brussels, 8 December 2014] The wrap-up event of the EWL European Political Mentoring Network took place last Tuesday in Brussels. The event was the opportunity to looking back at two years of an exciting programme which contributed to give visibility to the issues of gender equality and diversity in political decision-making.

The event was opened by Viviane Teitelbaum, President of the European Women’s Lobby, who underlined the great achievements made by the EWL European Political Mentoring Network since its launch in 2013. Serap Altinisik, EWL Fundraising Coordinator, Policy Officer and coordinator of the 50/50 Campaign, recalled that only 37% of Members of the European Parliament are women and that diversity was clearly lacking in the new parliamentary legislative term. In a video message, Member of the European Parliament Ulrike Lunacek shared her experience of mentor of Kolia Bénié and thanked the European Women’s Lobby for such initiative.

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Sanchia Alasia, Kolia Bénié, Kamilla Sultanova and Güliz Tomruk looked back at their experience of mentees. They explained the challenges they face as women from an ethnic minority and/or migrant background involved in politics, but also the excellent moments they spent with the participants and coordinators of the projects.

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Bart Majoor and Myriam Sahraoui, filmmakers of the documentary, and Karima Zahi, coordinator of the European Political Mentoring Network, also shared their experience with the participants.

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The wrap-up event was also the opportunity to officially launch the DVD of the documentary “Mentoring for Change“, which was shot thoughout the project. The documentary is also available online here. More pictures are available on our Flickr account.

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The European Women’s Lobby thank all the participants to the wrap-up event and the mentees, mentors, trainers and coordinators involved in the project for their commitment to make equality in political decision-making a reality! And special thanks to the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftüng EU Office which hosted the event!

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About the European Political Mentoring Network From January 2013 to the European elections in May 2014, the EPMN connected 11 women MEPs (the mentors) with 11 women from a migrant or ethnic minority background and different political parties, who are interested in running for the 2014 European elections (the mentees). The purpose was to better prepare the mentees to compete for the European elections, by sharing advice and experiences during one-to-one meetings. The EWL Mentoring Project was developed within the framework of the EWL 50/50 Campaign, which aims to improve the representation of women in the EU institutions and put issues related to women’s rights and gender equality high on the EU agenda.

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