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News Releases
March 6, 2003
WOMEN USING THE INTERNET TO AFFECT SOCIAL POLICY
Ottawa -- With the Canadian theme of International Women's Week and Day, "World-Wide Women: Surfing the Digital Revolution!," examining the impact of information and communications technologies and the Internet on women, the Honourable Jean Augustine, Secretary of State (Multiculturalism) (Status of Women) is pleased to announce a grant for Womenspace Association's initiative. Over a period of 24 months, Womenspace will be working in partnership with Status of Women Canada to strengthen the capacity of women and women's equality-seeking organizations to use the Internet to participate in, and effectively influence public policy processes with the help of a $640,000 grant.
"Without access to the technology and skills in using it, women will continue to be relegated to the sideline of information and communications technology. As the Internet is evolving and policy making and access to the process moves toward being available on-line, it is even more important to ensure women are able to participate," said Ms. Augustine.
Womenspace will carry out a series of activities to strengthen women's participation in the Internet and on-line public policy processes. Work will be done to establish a set of principles for the use of the Internet to plan, develop and implement social policy; to host a face-to-face consultation in 2003 between equality-seeking organizations, Status of Women Canada and other federal departments; to publish an on-line social policy toolkit to strengthen capacity for participation in the social policy process and to publish an overall report on the initiative, both on-line and in alternate formats. An advisory committee of representatives from equality-seeking organizations and government will be established to guide the initiative and a variety of evaluation strategies have been built into the ongoing activities. Of the $640,000 grant, $500,000 comes from the Sector Involvement in Departmental Policy Development, of the Voluntary Sector Initiative.
Status of Women Canada promotes gender equality and the full participation of all women in the economic, social, cultural and political life of Canada.
Funding for this project was provided for in the February 2003 budget and is therefore built into the existing fiscal framework.
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