Our historical heritage
During the late 1980´s a number of Swedish women were actively involved in matters of local development, women´s issues and a rural campain under the slogan ”All Sweden shall live!”.
Their initiative and their contribution resulted in the network kvinnokraft, ”Women´s Power”, which strove to introduce an increased women´s perspective into regional policy. Glesbygdsverket, The National Rural Area Development Agency, supplemented their work by making women´s work and its importance to development in rural areas visible.
Women´s Power strove to establish public opinion about the distribution of regional policy funding and its unequal distribution between women and men.
They directed their work to ensure that their inspiration would live on in the form of Regional Resource Centres and a co-ordinating National Resource Centre. The strategy was successful.
In the 1994 regional policy Bill, the National Rural Area Development Agency secured a hearing for its proposal to set up a National Resource Centre. The Bill also highlighted the need for a women´s perspective on regional policy.
So, later on in 1994 it was decided in an Act of Parliament that the county administrations in Sweden should make resources available to assist with the creation of Regional Resource Centres for Women in the 21 counties.
The vision of Resource Centres for Women
A Resource Centre is a meeting place for women and bases its approach on local conditions. Our aim is to strengthen women´s position and increase women´s influence in society and also to be a driving force for regional development.
Our vision is an equal society, in which women´s and men´s competence, experience and approaches are taken care of and used in social development.
A society in which women and men have equal responsibility and are equally involved in the development of the regions.
A society in which women are involved in regional development work, under the same terms and conditions as men, and benefit to the same extent as men from society´s resources.
The Resource Centre organisation has grown since 1994 when the National and the Regional Centres were created. Today we have about 150 Regional and Local Resource Centres and Networks.
The National Resource Centre no longer exists, it is integrated in Nutek (the Swedish National Board for Technical and Industrial Development) for mainstreaming purposes, which means that the equality perspective will be integrated into all policy areas in each department of Nutek. A special department to deal with issues of equality and to increase the women´s perspective is no longer needed, according to Nutek.
Resource Centres of Women in Skåne
In Skåne we have today 20 Local Resource Centres and Networks representing a multiplicity of local activities and networking reasons. We have one Regional Resource Centre for co-ordination and common actions. Altogether we have about 2700 participants, of which 2/3 (66%) businesswomen (mostly small entrepreneurs).
Our target group is all women in the county, but we have three groups of priority, and that is female entrepreneurs, women planning to start new business and women in rural areas.
An important task for a Resource Centre is to co-operate with authorities and organizations, locally and regionally. The internal co-operation between the different Resource Centres is also very important. Projects and competence development can be accomplished in common if a specific Resource Centre does not have the possibility or the resources to carry out an activity on its own.
The basic idea of our work is to build up networks, make contacts, initiate development projects and develop women´s competence. All of this will in the long run lead to the fact that women´s position in working life and society will be strengthened, more women will start vivid enterprises and new job opportunities will be created.
Our vision
- To increase women´s influence in society and working life on equal conditions.
Our aim
- To strengthen and increase women´s enterprise
- To increase women´s engagement in society
- To take care of, use and develop women´s competence
Our strategy
- To create meeting places
- To co-operate all over Skåne
- To co-operate with authorities and organizations
Our instruments
- Networking and building up networks
- Development projects
- Competence development