1. Womentor
Europen Federation of Mentors for Girls and Young
Women
Partner from Greece:
Greek Women Engineering Association (EDEM)
Panagiota (Betty) Rouni, Mechanical Engineer, PhD
International Affairs’ Responsible

2. Greek Women Engineering
Association (EDEM)
• Established 1995
• Members: Qualified Greek Women
Engineers (members of the Technical
Chamber of Greece)
• Members ~1500
• Women engineers in Greece ~14000

3. Greek Women Engineering
Association (EDEM)
Aims
• Promote the principals and create provisions for equality between
women and men in employment, education and society in general.
• Research into problems concerning women engineers and
subsequently seek solutions.
• Co-operate with other organisations (both abroad and in Greece),
which are involved in similar issues.
• Improve terms and conditions for women practising engineering as a
profession.
• Encourage community awareness on employment opportunities for
women and mainly of young women in the traditionally male
dominated profession of engineering.

4. Greek Women Engineering
Association (EDEM)
Aims
• Develop an information unit to support women engineers
concerning employment opportunities in the labour market,
according to specialised qualifications, training and their
professional experience. This will be related to training and
development programs aimed at enhancing women engineers’
chances of employment.
• Encourage and promote activities of women engineers beyond
their professional sphere. These can include: artistic creation,
cultural activities and improvement of quality of life in general.

5. Official Greek gender equality
agencies
• The General Secretariat for Gender Equality is the
governmental agency competent to plan, implement, and
monitor the implementation of policies on equality
between women and men in all sectors.
• The Research Centre for Gender Equality (KETHI), a
Legal Entity under Private Law, was founded in 1994. It
conducts social research on gender equality issues and
implement actions to improve women’s status and enable
their advancement in all areas of political, economic and
social life, within the framework of the policies defined by
the General Secretariat for Equality.

6. Greek Women Engineering
Association (EDEM)
Networks:
• WITEC (European Association for Women in
Science, Engineering and Technology)
• EPWS (European Platform of Women
Scientists)
• PERIKTIONI (Greek network of women
scientists working in Research Centers and
Academia)

7. Greek Women Engineering
Association (EDEM)
Recent Projects:
1. INDECS - Potentials of Interdisciplinary Degree Courses in Engineering,
Information Technology, Natural and Socio-Economic Sciences in a Changing
Society
2. Altener -Women And Renewable Energy Sources
3. PREparing Female students for Academic Entrepreneurship (PREFACE)
4. Creating Cultures of Success for Women Engineers (WOMENG)
5. EQUAL Teleworking
6. Tackling Stereotypes: Maximising the Potential of Women in SET
7. EQUAL- Adoption of mechanisms and programs for life learning from the
SME’s – certification of educational parcels and recognition of acquired
knowledge in the sectors of applications of information technology and
technical professions

8. Greek Women Engineering
Association (EDEM)
Mentoring projects:
• Mellow: Life long Mentoring of Women in
and/or towards technical jobs.
• Win: Women in Network

9. Mentor-Mentee-Mentoring
In Greek mythology, Mentor
(Μέντωρ / Méntτr) was in
his old age, a friend of
Odysseus.
When Odysseus left for the
Trojan War he placed
Mentor in charge of his
son, Telemachus, and of
his palace.

10. Mentor-Mentee-Mentoring
This is the source of the modern use of the word
mentor:
A trusted friend, counsellor or teacher, usually a
more experienced person.
Today mentors provide their expertise to less
experienced individuals (mentees) in order to
help them advance their careers, enhance their
education, and build their networks.

11. Mellow
• Questionnaire to mentors and mentees
• Matching pairs mentors-mentees
• Meetings mentor-mentee
• Evaluation and comments by mentor-mentee

12. Win
• International meeting of partners
• Handbook with good practices about
mentoring

13. EDEM’s experience
• Mentors have not only to be successful professionals, they
must be willing to devote time to the mentee and enter the
way of thinking of young people.
• Mentees have to understand that mentor is not the person
to find them a job or solve all their problems.
• Both have to devote time to know each other and the talk
sincerely.
• Mentee and mentor will gain self confidence after the
meetings and became more conscious of their role in the
society.

14. Mentoring in Greece (1)
• Greek society needs special actions to fight
stereotypes and help girls and young women to
draw a career according their talents and
qualifications
• Mentoring is in the beginning in Greece
• Girls and young women do not know where to
find someone to act like a mentor for them
• Experienced women in general they are not
conscious about the role they can play in the
society

15. Mentoring in Greece (2)
• Girls and young women do not know where to ask
for advice and support
• They cannot find easily an experienced woman in
their sector/discipline to address
• They do not know how to take benefit of an
experienced woman who wants to act like a
mentor for them
• Sometimes they confuse the mentoring process
with ‘admitting incapability’:
‘women are tough enough to fight with men’s rules’

16. Womentor - EDEM
Actions so far
• Participation at the students (Technical universities
students from European countries and Canada) event
“On the way to improve the quality in engineering
education” in the session Women in Engineering field
(Athens, 12-19 May 2008) with presentation
‘Investigation of the causes for the low attraction of
female students in the Technical Universities and for
the slow development of women in engineering
careers’.
• EDEM provide secondary schools with statistics and
research results about women in technical studies and
professions.

17. Womentor - EDEM
•Womentor workshop in Athens, 24-25 May 2008:
Participants: women students of engineering,
university career office, young women engineers,
EDEM’s board, government equality officers,
Secondary education teachers, experienced women
engineers etc.

18. Womentor - EDEM
Womentor workshop in Athens, 24-25 May 2008
Conclusions:
• Women students and young women professionals need
mentoring to find their way easier and sooner for a career
of their choice.
• Mentoring in secondary education could help society to
implement equality right to this generation.
• There is need to train women volunteers to act as mentors.
• Mentoring projects have to be supported by national
governments, universities and EU.

19. Future
EDEM wants to:
• create a pilot group of mentors and mentees to
act like a cell for the promotion of mentoring
process in schools, universities and in
occupation.
• create a list of mentors for different professions
to address young women when they ask for
help/advice.
EDEM will devote the annual women engineering students
awarding event to mentoring (in December 2008).