SWAFE, the EU Athletes project that aims to empower women athletes in Europe, held a conference in Athens earlier this week. This event gathered 20 different players association from 10 EU countries and various women sports such as handball, rugby, basketball, futsal, Gaelic sport, football, golf, and judo.
The objective of the conference was to offer women athletes from Europe a platform to exchange on best practices but also on the challenges women athletes are facing when they are trying to organise themselves into groups such as player unions.
This first ever event on gender equality organised by EU Athletes was a success and for EU Athletes policy officer Paulina Tomczyk this is just beginning:
” The EU Athletes board have decided that gender equality should be one of our priority. I was really pleased to chair this conference and see that women athletes are trying to get organised everywhere in Europe. It’s the role of EU Athletes to offer them an opportunity to exchange on the challenges they are facing : employment, equal pay, harrassement at the workplace and health and safety issues. We are looking forward to continue this intiative in the near future and we are already in touch with women representatives who couldn’t be present at the conference. This ERASMUS+ funding is a great opportunity for us to invite athletes and athletes representative to share their experience.”
Now the project staff will use the results of the conference to put together a women player’s guide that would be distributed to women players association later this year.