Discover the good Equal Opportunities idea of the week!

At the initiative of AER Vice President for Equal Opportunities, Anna Tomanova Makanova, members of the AER executive board met representatives from the Women Entrepreneurship Academy in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina on March 16, 2016. The meeting took place in Backi Petrovac, a small municipality with a large Slovak minority, located in close vicinity to Novi Sad, the second largest region in Serbia.

The Academy is an NGO, which has, since 2006, implemented over 19 national and international projects; trained more than 1800 women and girls and has become a partner to 20 municipalities in Serbia and abroad. The Academy’s focus is on economic empowerment of women. They assist girls and women to start up and develop their own businesses through a certified education program. The Academy helps women to improve their professional and personal skills to become competitive and self-confident actors of local change.

They also support local governments in order to integrate gender equality standards in key policy legal acts, documents, strategies, budgets, and work with local executive and legislative bodies to help them become municipalities attractive for families and businesses. The academy strongly advocates gender responsive business environments and deeply supports bridging the gap between business, gender and education.

Their added value lies in providing new and feasible business ideas that may, beside pleasure, bring income. Here are two example of their initiatives:  creative welding, and traditional motifs in contemporary fashion designs.

The NGO is looking for partners in Europe to work together to improve quality of life by making gender equality an everyday reality.

Contact person: Jana Zabunov,
Director of
Women’s Entrepreneurship Academy
[email protected],
www.ewa.org.rs,
+381-63-528-226