The EU-funded project "Citizen Foresight" aims to promote citizen engagement and participation in Europe, fostering unity across diverse segments of society – including trade unions – and promoting the values and rights of citizenship. It consists of a series of events organised by the project's partners at local level. On top of local activities, the project will deliver a toolkit providing best methods and strategies to engage citizens. It will be used by participants as well as IFJ members hoping to involve their members in future debates around trade unionism and journalism.
The kick off meeting took place in Berlin on 18-19-20 September. Led by the German-based organisation "Comparative Research Network", the meeting brought together all project partners, namely: tadtlabor (Austria), Fondazione per la progettazione internazion (Italy), Sdruzhenie Byuro za integratsiai sotsialni inovat (Bulgaria), Fondazione links (Italy), ALDA (France) and the IFJ.
The meeting was an opportunity to showcase partners' strategies to engage citizens with practical exercises and methodologies to foster participation and enhance debate. The IFJ presented an exercise addressing existing gender equality gaps in newsrooms in a participative format.
As part of the project, the IFJ will organise a series of activities to strengthen its network and unions' capacities on the issue of gender equality, building on existing work addressing gender stereotypes in the news and promoting women leadership in journalism and media. Countries planning for local events include Germany, Portugal, Spain and Serbia.
The first of these meetings took place on 20 September in Berlin at Ver.di’s offices, the IFJ's German affiliate, focusing on the union's work to enhance gender equality and women's capacities in journalism, the use of artificial intelligence in journalism and the role of unions, as well as ongoing IFJ campaigns to support trade unionism.
“The project is an opportunity for trade unions, journalists and citizens in Europe to reorganise their visions and strategies to tackle gender equality and fair representation of women in the media. It will highlight the importance of building strong networks of organisations and stakeholders dealing with gender equality and involve citizens and journalists in shaping the future of Europe”, said IFJ international officer Nisrine Salameh.