December 10 is Human Rights Day, coinciding with the date on which the General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in 1948, to proclaim the inalienable rights inherent to all human beings, promoting values of equity, justice and human dignity. However, there is still a way to go before the collecting principles are fully fulfilled.
The Social Promotion Foundation, aware of this, and committed to defending these values, integrates into its projects measures that help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to try to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.
On this day we want to highlight the work of the Foundation in favor of women, which is framed under SDG 5, not only present in its cooperation projects, but also directly or transversely in all sectors of its activity.
Proof of this is the launch of its Observatory Women and Equality (OMEI), a multidisciplinary think tank that tries to generate knowledge about the situation of women in the world, and therefore of all the variables that are at the origin of the lack of equality: economic, social, cultural and family, to promote actions that improve their living conditions.
All this with the conviction that any measure that strengthens the role of women in today’s society, strengthens society as a whole. No society will be complete if it dispenses with 50% of its talent.
To this end, in 2019, OMEI has presented the conclusions of the study “Is there‘ penalty ’for maternity? Women and the labor market in Spain from a family perspective ”, carried out by the Complutense University of Madrid, the University of Seville and Family Action, with the support of the Government of Spain.
From a theoretical-practical perspective, and based on the empirical data of the study, this debate was approached twice, proposing future measures to achieve a positive impact that corrects the inequalities.
Held at the headquarters of the Cervantes Institute in New York, with the sponsorship of Google, Fundación Chávarri, Iberdrola, Rodilla and Zebra Producciones, the round table was attended by María Beamonte, General Director of the Social Promotion Foundation, Antonio Jesús Sánchez Fuentes, co-author of the study, Eva Chamizo, Director of European Affairs of Iberdrola, Blanca Narváez, General Director of the Junior Achievment Foundation, and Ana Fernández Ardavín, dean of IMF Bussines School. The table was moderated by Julieta de Micheo, Director of OMEI.
This same table was reproduced in July, on Google for Statup Campus in Madrid, and was closed by the Secretary of State for Equality, Soledad Murillo.
Also, in October, OMEI, with the support of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, also co-organized the seminar “Women, transformer of society”, in Antigua Guatemala.
Non-governmental organizations from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Panama and Peru shared initiatives and experiences to combat poverty generated by the inequality of opportunities between men and women through the promotion of women’s entrepreneurship in their countries.