Equal Opportunities for Older Women
About the initiative Content and framework conditions Organisational background Back
Women's health centre Leibnitz "Die Spinne und das Netz" (The spider and the web)
Communicational details
Address:
Fettinger Gasse 6
8430 Leibnitz
Austria
Contact persons and their known foreign languages:
Eva Janes, Project manager, Swedish, English
Telephone: + 43-3452-74020
Telefax:
E-Mail: frauen.pflege@fgz.co.at
Internet: www.fgz.co.at
About the initiative
Status of the initiative: The initiative is a self-help initiative aimed at improving equal opportunities for older women through an organisation that pursues objectives which are independent of gender or age.
The initiative has the dicisive support of the following organisation:
Frauengesundheitszentrum Graz
Address:
Brockmanngasse 48
8010 Graz
Austria
Telephone: 0043-316-837998
Telefax: 0043-316-837998-25
E-Mail:
Internet:
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Content and framework conditions of the project work
The initiative was founded in: 1997
The initiative was founded because of the following reasons: The Women's Health Centre in Graz received numerous inquiries and demands by countless female experts to do something for this target group. The project was developed by Sylvia Groth, managing director of the Women's Health Centre Graz, Prof. Dr. Éva Rásky, Institute for Social Medicine, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, and Eva Janes, project head of the women's health centre Leibnitz "Die Spinne und das Netz".
The project has to ensure its funding on an annual basis. Efforts are being invested into securing long-term financing.
Target group(s): Women caring for relatives at home and women in care professions.
Targets: - Promoting health at the workplace
- Empowerment
- Promoting awareness and PR-work
- Inventory of what is on offer
- Encouraging and supporting women towards participating in the community
Details of the work done by the initiative:

- Motivating and informing women caring for relatives at home about what is available in the line of mobile services, voluntary insurance, care benefits and possibilities of obtaining support
- an interdisciplinary working group "ARGE Qualitätszirkel Pflege" aimed at making the conditions under which home care is provided more oriented to women's needs
- Working group "Pflegegeld"
- Self-help group for caring relatives
- Variety of training and qualification courses in the Leibnitz region
- Women's Health Centre Leibnitz Information exchange
- Cafe Spinne
- PR-work aimed at drawing attention to the "invisible" care work being done by women
- Care hotline
- Library
- Own magazine
- Contributions at special seminars and events
- Cooperation with the WHO
- In-company health promotion.
Areas of work of the initiative:
Care
Political participation
Social contacts
Education
Health
Migration
Success that the initiative has achieved:

-Greater awareness
-Greater demand by caring relatives
-Demand for qualification and professionalisation courses
-Acceptance by the Social Welfare Association
-Integration of institutions that coordinate honorary work
-Collaboration and joint planning with all mobile services
-Successful media work and presentation of the project findings at relevant seminars and conferences
-c. 120 events with more than 2,500 visitors in cooperation with other organisers
-major conference on the theme of "Caring Relatives" on 29.10.1999 in Graz
-Cooperation with the regional hospital in Wagna and inauguration of the interdisciplinary working group "ARGE Qualitätszirkel Pflege" with the aim of developing framework conditions for homoe care that are more oriented to the needs of women
-Internationale networking.
Problems that the initiative has been faced during its work:

Comprehensive political lobby work so as to secure our financial situation.
Participation of the target group concerning the conception, planning and implementation of the initiative's work:

Even at the project development stage the women participated in structuring the work. The methods are: empowerment, participation, collaboration. These all presuppose a significant degree of involvement.
Co-operation:

Cooperation at the professional level from the very beginning, cooperation on organising events, etc., involvement in, among others, two EU-projects.
Information:

We are available for people interested in receiving more information on our initiative by phone, post or e-mail.
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Organisational background of the initiative
Staff:

4 salaried employees at the supporting organisation.
Budget:

1.9 million Schillings
Sources of funding:
Federal funds
State funds (in F regional)
Local government funds (in F department)
Revenue from the project work
Publications or information material available on our initiative:

Magazine, annual report, documentation "Pflegende Angehörige", folder "Projektarbeit" and the folders "Pflegehotline", "Ein frauengerechter Leitfaden für Selbsthilfegruppen", "Frau pflegt Mann - was tun, wenn aus der Paarbeziehung ein Pflegeverhältnis wird?" (lecture held on 1.4. 1998 at the Women's Health Centre by Gilde Ferraris)
Recommended literature:

- Rásky, Eva: Frauen- und Mädchengesundheitsbericht Graz und Steiermark
-Rásky, Eva; Janes, Eva; Groth, Sylvia: Die im Dunklen sieht man nicht-aber das muss ja nicht ewig so bleiben. Frauengesundheitszentrum Leibnitz "Die Spinne und das Netz", Public Health Newsletter nr.1/1999, S. 17-20
-Groth, Sylvia; Rásky, Eva: Frauengesundheiten, Studienverlag, Wien 1999
Tips and suggestions for people interested in foundig a similar initiative:

Professional supervision of the project and links with a supporting organisation with internationalen know-how and competence.
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2001-04-25