Women Get Back – experiencing women entrepreneurship activities under the warm sun of Torremolinos-Malaga, Spain. Iuliana and Andreea, two active youth workers and proud geyculeți took the trip from Bucharest to the sunny Torremolinos-Malaga, Spain, for Women Get Back, a training course about women empowerment in entrepreneurship, organized by Projuven Association, beween 10th and 17th of May.
The training gathered participants from 2 continents, Europe and South America: Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, Portugal, Italy, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil. The aim of the training was to create a network between European countries and South America in order to develop capacity to exchange good practices and plan future collaborations within the topic of women entrepreneurship.
The activities were engaging and interesting. During the training, we approached gender equality and women rights, we had discussions, debates and non-formal learning activities about gender-based violence and women entrepreneurship and we worked in groups to identify inspiring women and their contributions to women movements and human rights.
On the warm sand of Torremolinos Macarena Beach and under the tall palm trees, we worked in groups to exchange on social economy practices in Europe and South America and develop social entrepreneurship ideas, a step by step group method which comprised brainstorming and using a template to structure our social business plans and give meaning to future projects.
We had the oportunity to eat paella and other traditional Spanish foods, watch a flamenco dance, visit Malaga, art museums and important landmarks for the region’s history. Malaga was also the place where we celebrated our friendship and diversity, during the intercultural night, a great moment to discover new and distant cultures.
The training had its challenges, the language barrier slowed down the sessions and affected group dynamics, but we were able to overcome this issue and even fall in love with Spanish language. A great moment to reflect about how important it is to become culturally sensitive and to try to ecape the monopole of English language from time to time.
It was the first time to visit Spain and the first time to meet amazing, like-minded people from South America. The training offered me new perspectives on women entrepreneurship and set a platform for further collaborations. I feel grateful for and inspired by this experience! Andreea
In a relaxed, but meaningful work atmosphere, I had the oportunity to participate in this training course having many inspirational colegues from Europe & South America. We discussed about the women situations in different countries and the challenges that they cope with, we did useful exercises that coud be used as work tools in daily practice and we learned many new & interesting thing about different cultures in a intercultural dialogue. I was glad to meet again a youth worker from Brazil that I met previously in Bucharest in another training about gender equality. Thank you GEYC and PROJUVEN ! Iuliana
