Tag Archive | Equality

Don’t Silence Women’s Voices

Aug13

Support the 17 NCCWN Networks

NCCWN-Donegal Women’s Network and the other 16 NCCWN are under threat of closure. We truly need the support of the community to prevent this closure and we are therefore asking people to join us in lobbying the government to secure future funding for our valuable work in the community.

We have put together this online petition and asking people across Ireland to please sign it. The petition will be presented to Alan Kelly TD, Irish Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, who is overseeing the changes which affect our funding.

Why you should support NCCWN  

The “National Collective of Community-based Women’s Network’s” (NCCWN) is an organisation made up of 17 women’s networks, its work includes the advocacy of equality and human rights for all women in Ireland. With a working mission to “empower and support community-based women who experience disadvantage and marginalisation as a result of barriers to participation and lack of opportunities”.

Working within a limited budget in 2013 the NCCWN Projects engaged with 36,589 women from communities who do not engage with state agencies. NCCWN have demonstrated that this represents excellent value for money.  Funding enables the NCCWN across its 17 projects to not only employ core staff but to also lever in additional funding to coordinate and run development programmes including equality, health & wellbeing, active citizenship, community education, domestic abuse support, employment pathways.  Services provided include childcare centres, drop-in/information centres and counselling.  In the 17 Projects, this has resulted in the additional employment of approximately 200 people, managed and coordinated by NCCWN staff.

One of the main reasons it is possible to deliver this level of work within a limited budget is that the work is and always has been volunteer managed and led. Work with women from the most disadvantaged communities in the country is happening only because it is underpinned by thousands of volunteer hours and decades of commitment and voluntary effort. NCCWN development programmes encompass equality, education, health, employment paths and supports including childcare provision.

However funding to this project is to end December 2014. NCCWN is extremely concerned that its work in removing barriers to disadvantaged women’s full and equal participation in society and in local and national decision-making and policy arenas will be lost.  NCCWN now finds itself lobbying the government to safeguard the funding of the organisations work which is why we are asking for your support today to help secure the future of NCCWN and its local Women’s Projects beyond 2014.

Will you sign the NCCWN on-line petition? Your support is just a click away!

 

People in both Donegal and round the country are petitioning the government to ensure the future work of NCCWN and the 17 networks

Niamh Kennedy Letter of support

Michael Daly

HSE support letter Donegal Women’s network

Minister for the Environment Letter of Support NCCWN (3)

5050 letter of support Min Hogan letter re W Networks 10 7 14

Donegal Change Makers letter to Phil Hogan re DWN

DWDVS letter to minister Kelly 2014

DWN Leter of Support Lifford Clonleigh

What Do You Know About Your 2014 Local Election Candidates?

May11

It’s time to be informed

photo (27)

In the run up to the 2014 Donegal Local Elections, NCCWN- Donegal Women’s Network has sent out an ‘Open Invitation’ to all 2014 local election candidates to respond to questions that have been identified as areas of concern by voters in Donegal.

All candidates running have been invited to respond and to pledge to undertake specific actions if they are successful and elected onto Donegal County Council. All responses or non-responses, will be published on the Donegal Democrat’s specifically designed web- page  ‘BE INFORMED…..  about your 2014 Local Candidates.’ This we believe will give the electorate an insight into each candidate as well as giving the candidates an open forum which could be helpful in securing votes.

The questions cover a number of topics covering; childcare, cuts to carers, Domestic Abuse + Violence Against Women, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT), Travellers, Women’s Political Representation and Equality within our society. In the next couple of weeks our readers will receive an overview of the candidate’s responses as well as the link to the Donegal Democrat’s web page and that of NCCWN- Donegal Women’s Networks.

With 83 confirmed candidates in Donegal and sadly, only 11 female nominations in the county which include: Rena Donaghey FF, Mary Mc Cauley FF Claudia Kennedy, FF, Grace Boyle, FG, Siobhan Mc Laughlin, Labour, Maire Therese O Gallachoir, SF, Naimh Kennedy, Ind, Berne Mulhern, Ind, Patricia Mc Cafferty, Ind, Charlie Mc Dyer, People Before Profit and Eilish Haden, Direct Democracy Ireland.

This lack of female representation is been acknowledged by many men and women on the doorsteps in Donegal, with more women in the county council been seen as advantageous to a more effective running council.  One voter said, “Women are very practical and work more from a collective perspective as opposed to taking ‘territorial and confrontational’ stances.”

Taking a broad sweep of female representation across the North West the following clearly indicates little has changed to encourage and support the participation of female candidates despite the fact that the female membership of our two largest parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael is between 35% and 40%.

In Donegal Fine Gael have one woman running and 13 men; in Sligo – 10 men and one woman; in Leitrim – two women and 9 men. And, this is the party that introduced gender quotas!

Fianna Fail is no better.  In Donegal: 15 men and three women; In Sligo: one woman and eight men; in Leirim the situation is a little better with 9 men and 3 women.  Yet, Michael Martin, in Fianna Fail’s Gender Equality Action Plan, committed to ‘renew Irish politics and make it more representative’.  In the Irish Times (2/4/14) Senator Averil Power bravely criticised her own party’s failure to take serious action to address its low female representation.

Nationally there has been an increase of female participation for this local election with an increase of 6 % (from 17 % to 23 %.) All parties except FF have showed an increase,

FG – up by 5 %. Labour – up by 7 %. SF up by 9 % with the highest selection of female candidates within Anti Austerity Alliance at 33.3% and People Before Profit at 40%.

Under new legislation, the ‘Electoral (Amendment )Political Funding Bill 2011’, which comes into effect for the next general election,  political parties will be obliged to implement an electoral ‘gender’ quota or suffer severe financial penalties. Each party will have to have at least 30 % women on the ballot paper. Fine Gael for example last year under Electoral Acts received 2.8 million euro and therefore stands to lose up to 1.4 million euro. I wonder will the threat of financial penalty help to focus the minds of the men in power?

Watch this space!

 

Are you a Feminist? You Might be one If….

Apr29

are you a fem

President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins is not behind the door when he states that he is a feminist. Neither was his two predecessors President, Mary McAleese and President, Mary Robinson.

The San Diego State University chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW),  has a flier entitled – “You Might Be A Feminist If…” , that includes the following attributes that allow men and women to see what it means, essentially, to be a feminist:

  • you are a woman or man that believes in ending sexism.
  • you believe in equal pay for equal work.
  • you support choice and reproductive freedom.
  • you believe that women should not fear for their safety at night.
  • you believe that rape victims should be treated with respect, not suspicion.
  • you believe that women should not be defined by their bodies.
  • you want to see more female representation in elected office.
  • you know that equal rights are not “special rights”.
  • you believe that no opportunity should be closed to a woman because of her gender, race, class, or sexuality.
  • you believe that religion is not an excuse for sexism.
  • you want your daughter, mother, friend, sister, girlfriend, or wife to be safe from violence.
  • you believe in speaking up and taking action to end sexism.
  • you believe that women, women’s work, and women’s opinions matter.

Feminism means all of these things. If you agree with all or many of these statements, you might just be a feminist! Many people who read this list, and previously had not considered themselves to be feminists, reconsider their position.

Finola Brennan, Co-ordinator  NCCWN – DWN shares her thoughts on feminism –

“Feminism means very many different things to very many different people. 

For me, feminism is the belief that all people should be treated equally in legal, economic, social and political arenas – regardless of gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and other similar predominant identifying traits. 

Feminism includes the idea that a person’s gender does not define who they are or what they are worth and that being a woman [or indeed, a man] should not put a person at an overall, and especially -institutionalized disadvantage. 

Sometimes calling oneself a feminist comes with a plethora of stigmas including that one is a bra burning,  man-hating  militant, and of course – a lesbian! 

Nearly all who would consider themselves under the feminist umbrella would agree that the core of feminism revolves around a fundamental belief in equality.”

The editorial group of the National Collective of Community-based Women’s Networks – Donegal Women’s Network (NCCWN- DWN) would be interested in hearing your point of view.

Have your say: Invitation to attend the NCCWN-Donegal Women’s Network Manifesto Meeting

Apr17

Are you concerned about the issues effecting your community in Donegal?

Local and EU elections are happening on Friday 23rd May, and in the run up to these elections NCCWN-Donegal Women’s Network are holding a meeting on Wednesday 23rd April @11am to discuss the issues the network have found which has lead to the creation of the NCCWN Women’s Manifesto, but this is also an opportunity for members of the community to come together and discuss how we can address these local issues.

All are welcome please also share this invitation with family and friends.

Many thanks

For further details contact:

Telephone (074) 972 2790Email finbrennan@eircom.net or donwomnet@eircom.net