Duration: 2020 – 2023
Principal Researcher
Cristina Amaro da Costa
Team Members
Cátia Magalhães
Cláudia Chaves
Funding
EEA Grants – Programa Conciliação e Igualdade de Género
Research line:
Education, Citizenship and Inclusion
The MAIs project, through the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism (EEA Grants), to which Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway contribute. There is a consensus in national and European literature that the participation of women and their role in rural areas and agriculture is of enormous importance for economic and strategic growth in line with the EU2020 objectives. Women farmers are the bearers of ancestral and valuable agricultural knowledge; essential to the sustainability of local food systems; the main carers of children and the elderly; and good managers of natural resources, as they ensure their production, conservation and marketing. The aim is to increase the civic and associative participation of women farmers in inland regions, by empowering them, contributing to the greater visibility of their social role and increasing equality between men and women. focuses on stimulating active citizenship and the visibility and social participation of women farmers in the public sphere and local development, in line with the objectives of the National Strategy for Equality and Non-Discrimination and the EEagrants' Gender Equality and Reconciliation Program.To this end, an intervention project was designed based on the Theory of Change, which involves the use of participatory tools, from the diagnosis phase to intervention and evaluation. The project, as a pilot experience that can be replicated in the future in different regions, will be implemented through a plan of local actions to empower these women in two municipalities in the central interior of Portugal - São Pedro do Sul and Sabugal - allowing the impact of this training to be assessed according to some differentiating variables, such as age, education, training and initial level of association participation, as well as other structural variables, such as isolation and the ageing of the population. All the activities will be structured by prioritizing the needs diagnosed in the first phase of the project with women, through questionnaire surveys and focus groupsWe aim to increase the civic and associative participation of women farmers in inland regions, by empowering them, contributing to the greater visibility of their social role and increasing equality between men and women.