21/07/2026
🌍 Five months into GEM – and the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad has been busy!
Since the project's kick-off in Maribor this February, our team has been hard at work across the region, building GEM (Gender Equality in Mobilization) into a genuinely active partnership — not just on paper, but on the ground.
Here's a look back at what's happened so far:
🤝 February | Maribor — Kick-off meeting of the GEM consortium, bringing together partners from Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia, co-funded by the EU's CERV programme. The team agreed on the project's working plan and methodology for the road ahead.
🔬 March | Novi Sad — Four focus groups held at our Faculty, gathering 40 participants — high-school students and young women from both rural and urban backgrounds — to explore the barriers, motivations and support systems shaping young women's civic and political participation. This work also fed into a national report mapping the legal and social context of women's rights in Serbia.
🎭 March 8 | Ljubljana — An international dialogue on the position of women in the Western Balkans, held at Križanke on International Women's Day, with MEP Irena Joveva, director Ivica Buljan and other regional voices — closing with a performance of Chekhov's Three Sisters.
🗣️ June | Novi Sad — Our Community Advocacy Lab brought together students, trade unions, advocacy initiatives and youth organizations for an interactive seminar on social engagement and advocacy, tackling the structural and cultural barriers women still face across the region.
📣 July | Call for Papers — We've just launched the call for the GEM International Youth Summit, "Woman – Stigma, Identity and Emancipation," taking place 14–17 September 2026 at our Faculty, as part of the Summa Studiorum Philosophiae student conference. Abstract deadline: 1 August 2026 — we'd love to see submissions from young researchers, activists and creatives across the region!
Five months, five countries, dozens of collaborators — and we're only getting started. 💪
🔗 Follow the project's progress: https://www.ff.uns.ac.rs/sr/nauka/projekti/medjunarodni-projekti/gem-rodna-ravnopravnost-u-procesima-mobilizacije
