Working Women Week: Barcelona June 14 - June 18 2021

 

"This first edition of WWW, organized by Barcelona Expat Life, Barcelona Metropolitan, Planet Venus and Professional Women’s Network Barcelona, will be held from the 14th to the 18th of June and will consist of a series of hybrid (online and offline) events, workshops, exhibitions and round tables carried out by experts in their fields.

WWW has been born with the principal aim of connecting multiple organizations to exchange experiences, give support and disseminate knowledge on a variety of topics within the fields of diversity, gender balanced leadership and female empowerment.

A further objective is to connect working women with each other, create empowering synergies and enrich them with the different perspectives and resources provided by selected leading organizations, companies or individuals based in Barcelona and Catalonia.

GENDER EQUALITY
DIVERSITY
FEMALE EMPOWERMENT
LEADERSHIP
EDUCATION & RESOURCES "

For more info see here.

"Barcelona launches the Brexit Information Point for citizens and businesses"

 "The Barcelona City Council launches the Brexit Point, a fixed and face-to-face service point in the Business Support Office, in the MediaTIC building, aimed at citizens, companies, freelances and talent to answer questions on the possible opportunities and consequences of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.

This information point works by appointment and from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. from Monday to Thursday and from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Fridays to:

• Assisting citizens and working for the retention of international talent: clarifying doubts and reducing the concern of British citizens living Barcelona.
• Building loyalty and retention of investments and projects: informing British capital companies that operate in our territory and other people or organizations that may be affected by the impact of Brexit.
• Attracting investments and international talent: helping companies that want to establish in the city as a result of the UK’s exit from the EU.

This new service is launched by the Barcelona City Council, in coordination with the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Spain through the British Consulate General in Barcelona and the Ministry of Interior through the Government Subdelegation in Barcelona."

Read more from source here.

"As the European migrant trail has gone underground, the threat of sexual violence has increased"

"When Simin reached Europe, she thought the hardest part of her journey was behind her. 

She left her native Iran, where she had lived all of her 44 years, because she feared being arrested for her work as a journalist. It took her three months to travel from Iran to Serbia, much of it by foot across mountains and borders.

But it was when she was crossing into Croatia that the worst happened. She was raped by two smugglers, themselves migrants, from Afghanistan.

“The smugglers forced me to be with them. He threatened to not let me get in the car if I refused being with him,” says Simin, who is living in a center for refugees on the outskirts of Zagreb, Croatia.

“I had to do it. I was a woman alone — all on my own.”

A common story

Simin’s story is one of many similar accounts from women who have traveled the European migrant trail since the crisis began in 2015.

Rights groups say women face assault, harassment and sexual violence at every step of the way along the trail, including on European soil.

And there are signs that the environment for attacks against women along the route has only worsened since the height of the crisis. European countries have closed their borders and pushed the trail underground, putting women at greater risk than ever before.  

Many sexual crimes go unreported due to the precarious legal status of the victims as they cross borders and try to avoid authorities. And even when women do report incidents they have little hope of justice, for the same reason. " 

Read more from source at PRI, here.

"The Pain in Spain"

[Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images]

Back from a month-long visit to a former homeland [Australia] it seems to me that Spain has only just survived further economic bailouts...

A simple and unflinching account of exactly why this country got into so much financial trouble can be found at a new, impressive non-profit website called The Global Mail, which is employing some of down-under’s most experienced journalists.

Their European correspondent Eric Ellis, has also examined the “potentially explosive conditions in south-eastern Spain, where illegal African immigrants slave for a pittance in Europe’s salad bowl.

"The Catalan Footprint in Australia"

...is an on-line exhibition presented at The Immigration Museum in Melbourne (Australia) this month. It presents stories and images of the Catalan pioneers in Australia and the human side of this migratory movement.

[Source: The Australian New Zealander Catalan Society.]