Donegal Gender Equality Project Restoring the Balance

In January 2001, Breege Doherty took up the post of Gender & Policy Officer, within the new Gender Equality Project Restoring the Balance.   This project evolved from the Gender Focus Group of the County Development Board which draws its membership from a range of organisations, allowing the Project access to a vast range of experience. 

Restoring the Balance aims to increase the effective participation of Women in key decision making structures and selected workplaces and is managed by and based at the Donegal Womens Network in Ballybofey.

Funding for the project is drawn from the Equality for Women Measure of the Regional Operational programme of the National Development Plan 2000 2006.

A key strand of the project involves building the leadership capacity of Women.  This will be achieved through developing and running a leadership module for Women titled Women Making Decisions! which will be run in Donegal Town, Letterkenny and Ballybofey.  The lead agency involved in this is the Second Chance Education Project for Women. 

A number of other activities of the same form are currently in the planning stage:

  • The development of a support forum for women in middle management; 

  • The publication of a manual for Womens effective participation;

  • a conference exploring Womens participation within and experience of the decision making fora. 

The second strand of the project involves a Gender Equality Training Programme of members of Donegal VEC, NWHB and Udaras na Gaeltachta, each of which has representatives on the CDB.  Another focus of this strand is on developing and running a Gender Equality module within the LYIT Diploma / Degree in Community Studies. Also planned is the research of family friendly policies and practices within the public and industrial sector.

The Projects first 6 months have been very active with a focus on sowing the seeds and building foundations.  As Autumn approaches, progress is proceeding as the module Women making decisions! is ready to begin in Donegal Town, the Gender Equality Training Programme is scheduled for October and discussion regarding the development of the Gender Equality module of the Community Studies course is underway. 

 

Breege Doherty, Gender and Policy Officer, September 2002