European Academy for Women in Politics and Business Berlin

The European Academy for Women in Politics and Business Berlin e. V. (EAF) is a non-profit organization that promotes equal participation of women and men in political and economic leadership positions. Her main areas of activity are programs based on scientific expertise to promote young female managers and to improve equal opportunities , diversity and work-life balance .

history

On October 30, 1995, Barbara Schaeffer-Hegel from Berlin, together with six other founding partners, founded the European Academy for Women in Politics Berlin as a registered association (eV), whose non-profit status was recognized on March 11, 1996. In the following year the name of the association was extended to European Academy for Women in Politics ›and Economy‹ . The Technical University of Berlin gave start-up support for the founding of the EAF by partially exempting the founder from her teaching duties, as well as by providing rooms and by pre-financing the first EAF projects.

Since its inception, it has cooperated with several federal ministries, with companies, clubs and associations. The EAF is active throughout the Federal Republic and also contests political programs outside of Europe. In 2007, Barbara Schaeffer-Hegel resigned from the chairmanship of the board and handed over the reins to her colleague Helga Lukoschat .

Vision and goals

The new German women's movement brought about profound changes in public awareness in the 1980s and led to the establishment of a number of new institutions. In their political justification, these initiatives were mainly based on the disadvantages that women are still exposed to today. They no longer did justice to the specific value and social significance of women, as well as the changes that had occurred in the way of life of women and men in the course of the 20th century. Under Schaeffer-Hegel's leadership, the EAF was therefore the first German women's organization to promote women in management positions. As the first feminist organization in Germany, it drew its legitimation not from the victim role of women, but from the significant contribution that women make to society under the conditions of a lack of skilled workers and a decline in population. In the interest of the still difficult work-life balance , decisive structural changes had to be made in working life, in the educational sector and in the gender-specific division of labor between men and women. More women in management and decision-making positions should help ensure that such structural changes are tackled. With its projects, the EAF wants to achieve that more women with leadership potential are encouraged to exert influence and to promote changes for the benefit and in the interests of all members of society - women, men and children. The turnaround in women's politics with which the EAF founded its projects and programs gave it access to many new and influential partners from politics and business.

program

The EAF programs - research projects, publications, conferences, workshops and training programs - aim to promote and strengthen young women with leadership potential in all areas of society. Several program formats have been developed with this in mind.

Mentoring projects

On a research tour through the USA, Barbara Schaeffer-Hegel got to know the mentoring programs of the Public Leadership Education Network in Washington, DC and, slightly modified, developed them into the Preparing Women to Lead - PWL project . PWL became the model project and model for the differentiated range of mentoring projects of the EAF, which, in addition to imparting knowledge and personality training, give young women practical experience and contact with women in management positions. The EAF mentoring programs are mostly not aimed directly at young women, but rather at companies, political parties and associations, municipalities, state administrations and scientific institutions that are planning funding for their young employees and, as a project partner with the EAF, something that suits them Decide on project design .

The most important mentoring projects of the first ten years that the EAF carried out with many partners and that serve as a template for a large number of other mentoring projects are:

IOT - It's Our Turn : a one-week mentoring training program for secondary school girls, which has been implemented in various compositions and with the support of various providers (including the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth, BMFSFJ ; Federal Center for Political Education ) from 1999 with interruptions and with slight varying thematic priorities are offered by the EAF until today;
WPL - Women for Public Leadership. Start-up support for young female leaders in politics: a one-week training program with a one-month internship with mentoring for university graduates, which was carried out for the first time in 2003 and 2005 with the support of the Federal Agency for Civic Education;
Careerbuilding for women in science. Coaching - Training - Mentoring was carried out in the years 2000–2002 in cooperation with Forschungszentrum Jülich ;
Take the lead with mentoring! Career advancement for the next generation of female managers in the Berlin administration : a program for young female administrative employees, which was carried out in cooperation with the Berlin Institute for Administrative Management at the Administrative Academy Berlin and the Berlin Senate for Economics, Labor and Women in 2003 and 2005 in two rounds a total of 35 mentor and mentee tandems were carried out in Berlin;

Entry to promotion - qualification and mentoring program for graduates from Brandenburg universities , which was carried out in cooperation with the Brandenburg Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Health and Women for young university graduates from Brandenburg;

Women in Management , a management development project for young entrepreneurs and young female managers in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in cooperation with the Ministry for Women, Labor and Social Affairs, Hanover;

Move Ahead - Congress for young women at the start of their careers , a short training mentoring program that the EAF first carried out in May 2000 in cooperation with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Well-known women from economic and public spheres volunteered as speakers and short-term mentors for young university graduates and enabled the young women to have brief but intensive contact with female “role models”. The project was carried out in the following years in cooperation with other partners, including a. with management consultancy McKinsey repeatedly;

Discover and promote quality , a mentoring program that EAF carried out in 2005 for female managers at Deutsche BP AG .

Consulting and planning projects for the economy

In addition to the targeted promotion of young female managers, the EAF has dedicated itself in a special way to anchoring gender aspects in the economy. Through mentoring projects for its female junior staff, as well as organizational advice and marketing and product advice, the EAF endeavors to induce commercial enterprises to change their perspective, which gives them the advantages of women- and gender-specific aspects in corporate culture , operational strategies and the Making development of new production goals clear.

EAF's first comprehensive consulting and development project with a commercial enterprise took place in cooperation with Wintershall AG and led to a series of profound operational changes in this company. The Wintershall project became the model for later EAF projects with other companies.
Innovation through (E) quality management . Young female managers for medium-sized businesses - (EQM) was funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Berlin Senate for Science. In this project, engineers and natural scientists were prepared for management tasks in technology-oriented service companies. The scientific director of the EAF, Marion Esch, who developed and carried out this project, also acquired the feasibility study.
Quality management in small and medium-sized companies in East Berlin . Legal framework conditions, problems and solution strategies, which were financed by the European Fund for Regional Development (ERDF) and the Senate Department for Economics and Technology Berlin, and the
Online information and advice service on corporate equal opportunities for small and medium-sized companies: e-quality-management.de , which was funded for several years by the Federal Ministry for Family Seniors, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) and which was available nationwide.
The project Discover Gender – Gender-Aspects in Research, in cooperation with several large technology companies, identified approaches for taking into account the fact that women have other interests and interests not only through personnel decisions and marketing, but also through research and development of new products Have needs as men and that the industry can adjust to them for its own benefit.

Conferences and congresses

From the beginning of its existence, the EAF has organized conferences on important women’s political topics and ended its events and research projects with a closing event on the respective topic, to which, in addition to the press, relevant officials, companies and scientists as well as a specific interested public were invited. The most important conferences of the EAF were

The international conference concepts and strategies for the political education and professionalization of women for politics , which took place on September 25th and 26th, 1997 at the German Industry and Trade Day in Bonn and at which the results of the EAF's first research project “On the situation and future by women in politics as a task of political education «, presented and discussed with international experts;
All of democracy. Women for the Future of Politics and Business , the founding congress of the EAF, took place in Berlin in April 1999 with more than 200 participants and generated an impressive response from the press, the relevant public and the invited guests.
Children as a future factor - for all-day education and care and Germany : the EAF's most important conference to date, which took place on June 6th and 7th, 2002 in the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy in Berlin, triggers a nationwide discussion about the need for all-day schools and all-day care for Children off.

Research projects

In recognition of the connection between political education and political equality, the Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology funded the EAF research project from December 1997

On the situation and future of women in politics as a task of political education , which was located at the Technical University of Berlin under the direction of Schaeffer-Hegel. The project was the first scientific study among all parliamentarians in Germany. Through an overall survey of all female MPs in the Federal Republic and an intensive survey of 30 top women politicians, the EAF put its own conception and its offers on a scientific basis.

As with this first research project, the EAF also presented the results of its other scientific surveys to the public at a conference and published the results as a book. Research project - conference - publication was the triple step from the beginning, in which the scientific investigations of the EAF were made available to the public. The most important scientific studies of the EAF dealt with current socio-politically relevant topics, among others

the question of whether mothers in managerial positions are a burden on their company or whether certain skills can make them an asset to your company;
the question of whether married couples in which both partners are aiming for or have already achieved a professional career fail as fathers and mothers. How these couples regulate their everyday family life and whether and how they support each other;
With what motivation, with what support and from what professional and / or family life circumstances women can be encouraged to participate in local political bodies and which clubs, associations and foundations can be partners for women in local politics.

Publications

All of democracy. To professionalize women for politics; Helga Foster, Helga Lukoschat, Barbara Schaeffer Hegel (eds.); Centaurus Verlagsgesellschaft , Pfaffenweiler 1998.
Career k (n) ick Children, mothers in management positions - an asset for companies; Bertelsmann Foundation (Ed.), Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung , Gütersloh 2006, ISBN 3-89204-890-8 .
Children and Careers: The New Couples; Kathrin Walter, Helga Lukoschat, Bertelsmann Stiftung publishing house, Gütersloh 2008.
From everyday heroines and local experts. Local politicians in portrait; Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth (Ed.) DruckVogt, Berlin 2008.

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