The urge for a change​
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Trends of the last decades highlight an accentuated 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 within the laws of most countries, they are not generally applied in practice; therefore women continue to be under-represented in political decision-making processes, in public offices and in the civil service. Factors contributing to this are numerous, including historical, cultural and ideological influences, as well as the specific economic and social circumstances of young people and it is clear that legislative actions (e.g. quotas, parity thresholds, targets, etc.) in parties and institutions are not sufficient to ensure gender parity, neither to ensure truly representative processes.

Facing this framework, 
PatHERways consortium of partners understood that:

- Changes must be implemented at earlier stages, therefore it is essential to encourage and empower active citizenship and participation from young age;
- The shifting in attitudes should start from civil society to change political culture from the grassroots;
- Youth & NGOs should be the first ones incorporating gender equality as well as instilling the values of justice and participation necessary to the effective exercise of democratic citizenship;
- This is a global situation that needs to be tackled both in nascent and more established democracies;
- Different realities persist around the world despite the various experiments in gender policy and development programmes so far; 

THE

WORLD

IN

NUMBERS

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23,7%

Women hold a mere 23,7% of parliamen- tary seats, far short of parity *

1/3

In the private sector women globally oc- cupy less than a third of senior and middle management positions * 

1 IN 5

Based on data from 87 countries, 1 in 5 women and girls under the age of 50 will have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner within the last 12 months *

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52%

Only 52% of women married or in a union freely make their own decisions about sexual relations, contraceptive use and health care *

49

49 countries still lack laws protecting women from domestic violence *

15M

Harmful practices, such as child marriage, steal the childhood of 15 million girls under age 18 every year * 

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2,6x

Following the Census 2010 of Cape Verde, 22,55% of women refer that the family responsibility are among the main reasons for not being in the labor market as part of the considered active population, against only 4% of men ** 

Fonts:
* UN Women - SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
** Report ODM Cape Verde 2015

PatHERways main aim is
To develop the competences of youth workers, youth trainers and educators to efficiently engage young women in the political life within their organizations, networks and communities, contributing towards the improvement of 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 they face and contributing to a more democratic, sustainable, representative and equalitarian society and towards social and civil development.

And the Specific Objectives of the project are

• To develop the capacity building of the partner organizations in order to improve their work on youth participation, particularly regarding young women political participation among their target groups and networks;
• To improve the capacity of trainers and educators, empowering them to work more efficiently within the area of young women political empowerment in their national and local realities;
• To foster a transnational understanding between youth workers on the topic of youth political participation as well as identify policy practices that create environments promoting young women participation;
• To develop sustainable partnerships and networks among organizations working with youth for more democratic and ​structured processes;

• To identify and exchange good practice initiatives on international level that would promote young women political participation within their communities or/and organizations;
• To identify particular challenges faced by more vulnerable young women, such as diaspora communities through a transnational perspective;
• To increase the institutional awareness on the importance of youth policy development, particularly addressing young women participation ​in decision-making;
• To develop an education handbook that can support organizations, youth workers and institutions worldwide while initiating their work on gender equality in governance and empowerment of young political representation within youth work, including transnational recommendations on the topic. 

Project Partners