WUNRN
ECONOMIC LITERACY ACROSS EUROPE – TOOLS TO EMPOWER WOMEN
Tools for Feminist
Economy Literacy
August 10, 2015
- Almost two years ago five women’s rights, gender and development
organisations in five different countries started the Grundtvig-project
“Economic Literacy across Europe: Exchange and Cooperation to Promote a
Feminist Approach in Adult Education”. They are all WIDE+ members and involved
other member associations and individuals into the project as experts to their
meetings. The associations KULU in Denmark, Le Monde selon Les Femmes in
Belgium, WIDE Austria, WIDE Switzerland and WIDE-E Spain concluded their common
work with a publication that showcases the different tools used to educate
people on economy from a feminist perspective.
Direct Link to
Full 44-Page 2015 Publication: http://www.wide-netzwerk.at/images/publikationen/2015/mf-economic%20literacyen.pdf
The publication
uses the concept of “Economic Literacy” to strengthen the exchange in this area
in order to increase the capacity of women in the field of economics. The
partners had four meetings, each hosted by one of the project-partners. These
formed the basis for the dissemination of information, the exchange of
experiences and the opportunity to work on common approaches to increase the
quality of tools within the field of economic literacy. The debates and discussions
about the ongoing multiple economic crises and their impact on women were a
constant part of the meetings and exchanges. They showed clearly that the
concept of “Economic Literacy” is still very important and beneficial for our
adult education work with different women’s groups and for the empowerment of
women and girls worldwide, which is the main goal of the economic literacy
approach we employ.
Economic
literacy is about understanding national, regional, EU- specific and global
economy, and our place within it. It is therefore a useful approach in times of
globalisation and substantial changes that are taking place in relation to
social, political and economic paradigms. Economic literacy allows a better
understanding of processes in economic spheres and empowers people to create
alternative ways of thinking and acting that can improve their standing in
their daily lives, on the labour market, and as citizens.
Throughout the
project the partners compared their own well-tried tools with the tools of
other partners, experimented with some new ones, and tested the tools together.
Some of the tools have been exchanged from one partner to another and has
resulted in modifications. We also had quite an intensive discussion on our
diverse understandings of the “what is a tool?” question, which helped to
broaden our views and deepen our insights.
The result is
this collection of “good-practice tools” that include a variety of methods,
training tools, multimedia tools, and research approaches. The collection of
tools reflects the diversity of the organisations and their diverse
methodological approaches and access to economic literacy.
The publication
is in English and Spanish to be found on the websites of the associations: