Equality in the city as a lever for promotion and supporter of development of the project of self-Government

“No fog, no human intervention may not prevent the women to struggle up to ensure the real equality in practice”, stressed the Secretary General for Gender Equality, Luminous Kouvelas, beginning with the greeting addressed to the start of the 1st Panhellenic Conference of Elected Women, with the theme “Equality in the City”, which was held in the covered by mist Ride, the weekend 1-2/4/2016.
By defining the Government as an area of direct interaction with citizens, the General Secretary acknowledged at regional and local level of governance, the possibility of a substantial contribution to the restoration of phenomena of inequality and pointed out that:
“the achievement of equality in the city can act as a driver for emergence of the structures of local societies and as a contributor of development of the project of self-Government” while pointed out that “with the signing of the “European Charter for Gender Equality in Local Communities”, which have already signed a 165 Municipalities of the country, expressed the commitment to promote the principle of Gender Equality in the Municipalities, with the parameters of policies set out in the Charter and specified in the Implementation Guide.
For example, the Secretary-General reported on actions of the ΓΓΙΦ that enhance the integration of the gender dimension in the work of the local societies, such as the support of Municipal Committees Equality and Regional Equality Committees through the representatives of these, the ensure the continuity of the structures for combating violence against women in all of Greece, the treatment of issues of self-Government as a priority axis in the “National Action Plan for Gender Equality” in the period 2016-2020 as well as the use of the Guide for the overcoming of linguistic sexism of public documents, which already is in use, with the objective of combating gender-based language in the whole range of public documents.
The General Secretary said that the ΓΓΙΦ will continue its close cooperation with local authorities to support the work of elected women in local government, which is expanding and to new challenges such as the issues of female poverty, women refugees and their children, and the struggle to achieve equality in the city in general.
The Congress General Secretary visited the Counseling Centre for Women Municipality of Kavala, chat with the executives for the upgrade of function P.K and good cooperation with the Municipality in the new programming period 2016-2020.
Then visited the town Hall and spoke with Mayor Dimitra Tsanaka. A common finding, and of the two women was the necessity but also the greater effort must be made to achieve balanced gender participation in decision-making .
Touching was the moment of the visit of the Light Kouvelas together with the Mayor and the President of KEDE (C. Πατούλη in the Commercial Centre of Kavala, which hosts approximately 800 men, women and children refugees, and in which the Mayor of Kavala with the help of the army, has given the maximum attention to be human and decent living of the refugees.
According to a statement of the General Secretary “in The arms of small children and the warm greeting of the young women in short visit us, is the answer to the human attitude of the government, local authorities and of the Greek society and here in Kavala, facing to the problem. This gives us the power and obligation to continue our work even better and more efficiently”