AER Summer Academy, Novi Sad, Vojvodina http://www.aer.eu/

1. Rural women in the regions
-shared similiraties-
Gordana Čomić

2. Being a rural woman
• Less employed
• Less represented
• Less in the role of local or regional decision
maker
• Less payed
• Less property in her ownership
• Less freedom and chances for change
• Less perspective for development

3. Shared obstacles
• Harder and less access to banks and loans
• Tougher tradicional family models
• More non-payed work
• Shared struggle against domestic violence
• Less opportunity for higher education
• Less substance of social life
• More commute

4. What can I do?
• Adress local and regional authorities
• Adress local community
• Adress cross-border cooperation
• Share experiences
• Demand visibility
• Invest in future of children for better life in the
same local or regional community

5. How can I do it?
• Networking
• Joining women groups
• Addressing parliamentarian (local, regional,
national)
• Connecting with business women associations
• Activism as such

6. Strategies, tactics?
• Changing the role of rural women is a long ride
• Changes started quite recently on EU level
• Strategies must be clear and fundamentally with
the definition of rural women as unused potential
for development
• “I am not an object, but an actor, a player of
development”
• I can change everything that is changeable and do
anything that is doable

7. Has anyone done it?
• Yes, a lot of women in our regions
• Timeline for last 20-25 years shows that
changes started
• Rural women made people listen to them:
politicians, bankers, academics, civil sector,
media, men & women who do not live in rural
areas, legislators, lawyers, artists …
• Where rural women are seen and supported
the development is measurable

8. Who are my allies ?
• Anyone who can hear and understand very
simple sentence:
“From the beginning of time I was a rule taker
in my local community, now I want to be a rule
maker as well, because that is good for
everybody and because that is the source for
common development in the future”
Signed: Rural woman

9. Thank you!