of researchers ranging from humanities and social sciences to health sciences embracing qualitative, quantitative, and interdisciplinary studies. The Chair has put forward four areas of interest to conduct gender studies as well as a public engagement agenda for SDGs: (1) violence against women, (2) women employment, (3) political participation, and (4) women in engineering and health sciences. With regard to policy-oriented research and public impact, the Chair collaborates with national, regional, and international stakeholders such as the UN Women, the UNESCO national committee, municipalities, and bar associations. The Chair is also known to provide legislative monitoring projects and develop gender mainstreaming programs for companies to implement gender impact analysis in the decision-making process. The Chair has developed different types of programs for young professionals to foster international collaboration and gender equality and contribute to the promotion of global feminist advocacy. In this regard, the UNESCO Summer School on Women's Empowerment and Sustainable Development organized in 2019 has been regarded as a good practice at the global level. “In Turkish, there is an old saying and it states that if you drink a cup of coffee with a friendly person it will be remembered for 40 years. We could still do it virtually there and until our meeting face to face, we hope that the experience of the W37 summit is remembered well.” Dr. Bhavani Rao R., UNESCO Chair on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kerala, India, explained that the vision for the UNESCO Chair has been laid down by the Chancellor of the University, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, who states that as the two wings of a bird, men and women are of equal value, for without the two in perfect balance, humanity cannot progress. The mission of the Chair, established in 2016, is to increase women's empowerment as an equitable approach towards achieving gender equality through three strong pillars: participatory action research, implementation, and knowledge dissemination. In terms of implementation, the Chair works in 101 rural communities across 21 states in India, providing capacity building by using ICT to teach vocational livelihoods and life
skills. The purpose is also to actively engage rural women in cleaning and sustaining the environment, training them on maintaining collective living spaces, water bodies, and also building toilets for themselves through very strong involvement of individual women and women self-help groups so that they have strong economic empowerment and vitality within the communities. So far, 6000+ women and 200+ trainers have been trained in over 60 villages in 19 states, with 30,000+ indirect beneficiaries, with a variety of vocational skills, from basic sewing to plumbing or automotive servicing. Numerous projects have been implemented to improve the resilience of women through the Covid pandemic. Dr. Rao presented the systems-oriented approach that distills this knowledge into a framework which is accelerating women's empowerment through systems-oriented model expansion. She explained that the approach to community engagement is holistic and participatory with a vision towards promoting community development, ownership, and empowerment and is driven based on a behavioral shift for long-run sustenance. She then shared various projects on knowledge dissemination, including workshops, conferences, academic programs, publications, collaborations with foreign and local partner institutions, weekly research colloquium, reports with UNESCO on the status of the role of men in promoting gender equality in India, training of over 7000 paramilitary officers in mental health and in gender sensitization. “We are looking forward to collaborations at all levels for the holistic empowerment of women be it in economics, environment, society, politics, culture, safety, security, education, skill development, health, or sanitation.”
Pa r a l l e l S es s i o n 1 (B r e a ko u t Ro o m 1) Moderated by Dr. Joost Monks, Lecturer, University of Geneva 1. Gender Dynamics: A Case Study of Role Allocation in Engineering Education Professor Sune Von Solms, University of Johannesburg, South Africa Science and Technology Highlights The under-representation of women in engineer14
