Members of the Committee were welcomed by Valeriy Baranov, Deputy Head of AUC, Liudmyla Dromashko, the Head of Committee and City Mayor of Pervomaysk, Randy Goulden, member of Yorkton City Council and member of FCM Board of Directors, Alan Shefman, member of Vaughan City Council, and Kadie Ward, PLEDDG Senior Governance Advisor.
Valeriy Baranov spoke about the importance of the meeting, saying that one of integral parts of Ukraine’s democratic development was ensuring gender equality in all spheres of public life, including politics and local self-governance. Olena Tykhomyrova, PLEDDG gender equality consultant, presented the agenda of the meeting. She said that it was important to discuss how to make cities comfortable for women. She went on to suggest that the members of the Committee discuss challenges they come across both in Ukrainian cities and abroad. Her colleague Beth Woroniuk, Canadian gender equality expert, went through basic characteristics and definition of comfortable cities. She also shared international best practices of creating safe and secure cities for women.
Randy Goulden and Alan Shefman took part in the meeting following the invitation from PLEDDG Project. Randy Goulden, who is based in Yorkton, shared best practices of her town in creating a safe and comfortable environment for women. According to Mrs.Goulden, her goal is to identify and assist future women leaders in the Yorktown community and the surrounding area. Every two months Mrs Goulden organizes an informal get-together for women to discuss their role in the community. Those meeting are attended by representatives from the cultural, art, education, financial and business sectors, health care, local NGOs. In his presentation, Alan Shefman focused on the issue of inclusive communities, where all members, irrespective of their gender, nationality, religion, have equal access to all municipal services.
The second day of the meeting started with a discussion about the role of the Committee in the AUC and current progress on the implementation of the strategy in terms of ensuring equal rights for men and women. Following the discussion participants visited some of the implemented projects related to improving city comfort for women in Lviv, namely co-working center for young mothers “Nestling” as well as familiarized themselves with the program “Get in a game” (socializing for mothers on maternity leave).
Over the course of a lively and fruitful discussion, participants analyzed successful examples of creating comfortable cities for women, discussed the possibility of sharing this experience in other cities, learned about success stories in Lviv. They also developed an action plan for the cities in order to provide comfort and safety to all its residents, especially women. This plan will be further presented for discussion and evaluation to city mayors of the respective cities.
The subject of gender equality has become a cross-cutting theme of PLEDDG Project, providing for integration of a gender approach in all Project activities. Discussion of gender equality in general and creating comfortable cities for women will contribute to promoting gender equality at the local level and including the gender agenda in all aspects of city life-sustaining activity.
