Girona- City & Equality - Violence (En-Es-Cat-Fr)

EN---------------------------------- Dear colleagues,

As you must know, in a few days the European Commission will -if it has not done already- launch the call for proposals for the V Community Action Program on Equality of Opportunities between Women and Men, of which you can visit the Web site in http://europea.eu.int/comm/employment_social/equ_opp/... It is for that reason that we are writing to you.

Some months ago, the City Council of Girona made a call through the Internet with the objective to find new contacts among European agents who were interested in promoting the equality of opportunities between women and men using a methodology of mainstreaming. Our interest focuses on programs promoted by local authorities in average cities. If you are receiving this message it is because you answered to our call for contacts in due moment. Our situation at present is the following:

The City Council of Girona is really interested in joining in, as partner, to a project managed by another city. It could bring to it its previous experience in the field obtained from the management of the City and Equality project (1999-2000) from the IV Action Program, of which you can visit the Web site in www.cityandequality.org, and, if considered appropriate, could contribute also the base schema for the program candidature. As a partner, it would obviously contribute its part in the co-financing and distribution of responsibilities (for example, the dissemination among the Catalan and/or Spanish city councils, the administration of the Web site, etc.)

On the other side, we think that it would be of greatest interest to create a network of local authorities from average European cities that are promoting the equality of opportunities between women and men applying a mainstreaming methodology, which should be as extensive as possible. Such an initiative would be really helpful for the systemization and evaluation of the implementation of mainstreaming methodologies in the cities in order to improve the rate of equality between men and women. Further, it would allow the dissemination of "good practices" as well as the exchange of these practices in the transnational level and in the spheres of relations of each individual member of the network -for example, in the municipality movements in which the members participate. For that reason, we are prepared to join in any initiative that aims to foster the creation of such a network.

Girona is the central municipality (75.000 inhabitants) of an urban agglomeration of about 100.000 inhabitants, and has an area of influence of some 500.000 (Province of Girona). Geographically, it is located between Barcelona (100 Km to the South) and the French border in the Pyrenees (70 Km to the North) and the Costa Brava (to the East), of which it is the centre of all services. It is governed by the Socialist Party of Catalonia. Its own language is Catalan, with Spanish as co-official language. Culturally, it is closer to the French language but it also counts with resources in English and other languages.

If you are interested in keeping in contact with us in order to work jointly in some of the proposals we made, please contact us by answering to this message.

Yours sincerely,

Contact: Jordi Pruneda jpruneda@ajgirona.org 00 34 972 419442