PatH-ER-ways: Creating pathways for political participation of young women

Trends of the last decades highlight a crisis of political representation, especially among youth who prefer to get involved in more selective and autonomous forms of participation. At the same time, while political rights of women are embodied in the laws of most countries, they are not applied in practice and women continue to be under-represented in decision-making processes. Believing that this is a global challenge (needing to be tackled both in nascent and more established democracies), that change must come at earlier stages (and so it is necessary to encourage and empower active citizenship and participation since young age) and that a sifting attitude should start from civil society (recognizing the crucial role of NGO changing the political culture from the grassroots), the project “PatHERways: Creating pathways for political participation of young women” joined an international consortium of organizations from Portugal, Cape Verde, East Timor, France, Mozambique, Peru and United Kingdom with the aim on developing the competences of youth workers, trainers, educators, activists and young leader around the world to create educational activities and engage with local and national decision-makers and stakeholders to support young women political participation. Through this project, the consortium of partners expects to contribute to improve the representation of young women in the decision making bodies and structures within participatory and representative democracy, thus guaranteeing the defence of the particular issues and challenges young women face and contributing to a more democratic, sustainable, representative and equalitarian society and to social and civil development.Regarding the activities, the project hosted a First Seminar (Faro, Portugal) that allowed participants to start exploring the main topics of the project, to get to know each other and initiate the process of group building and to start working on a common understanding of concepts and principles that would guide the overall project. During the Training of Trainers (Assomada, Cape Verde) we could strengthen the capacity of participants to act as activists, multipliers and trainers for youth participation and gender rights, as well as, to support them in creating a set of educational sessions that they could put in practice with their own community. In between, each partner had also the opportunity to have a Job Shadowing experience in the organization of another partner and to dive into the diversity of contexts, experiences and opportunities around other continents. During the Final Seminar (Cascais, Portugal), the participants could share all the results achieved at national level and to understand the impact that was already generated during the execution of the project, to perform a final evaluation of overall project, to discuss on several follow-ups opportunities, to present the main results of the project to stakeholders, as well as, to celebrate the opportunity of being part of this project. Stemming from the project, it was created the “PatHERways Handbook” that expects to support other organizations, activists and educators around the world to develop meaningful educational sessions for multipliers on youth participation and gender equality in their communities, together with the “Recommendations for the promotion of the political participation of young women” that aim to be addressed to decision makers and support advocacy initiatives for young women political participation in each partner country and worldwide. PatHERways provided the space for networking and intercultural dialogue, increasing understanding on youth participation and gender equality and allowed each partner to gain a new set of skills and tools to put in action innovative trainings, improve their networking and to advocate for young women political participation close to national and international decision makers and stakeholders.