Dear Sir/Madam,

Greetings to all friends of the Commission on Gender Equality and wishes of a Merry Xmas and a prosperous New Year!

Spring meeting

The Secretariat would also like to take the opportunity to confirm the date of the spring meeting of the Commission. It will be held on 7-8/4 in the city of Gdansk. Arrival would be on Wednesday, 6 April, and optional stay until Saturday with a possibility to visit the city. Program, registration and practical details will be sent out to you all in the new year.

Campaign update

Our campaign, which was decided at the Autumn meeting in Panevezys, is being designed at the moment to be launched in early spring, and I will send you suggestions to react upon, for the campaign material. The theme, as we discussed, will concern general awareness-raising and also gender stereotypes, prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation.

We will need help with translation of short texts, to avoid expensive translating costs here in Sweden. The prioritised languages are:

Polish

Estonian

Latvian

Lithuanian

Russian

I hope there are possibilities for some of you to help with translating, when the text is ready. Please let us know which language you could cover. We would be most grateful for any help with this!

The other countries´ cities will get the English versions.

Baltic Sea Programme

There are currently investigating possibilities for funding our work, within the framework of Baltic Sea Programme, Interreg. This programme is closely linked to the Baltic Sea Strategy where we were active in discussion and preparing texts. We also had a partner idea with us during the Autumn meeting of the programme in Tallinn concerning prostitution and human trafficking, so if you have any ideas or would like to be part of a partnership for this call, please contact us so we can discuss it.

Merry Xmas and a happy New Year!

Greetings from the Chair and secretariat of the Commission of Gender Equality, Union of Baltic Cities

/Aurora and Helene

******************************

Helene Brewer
Jämställdhetsstrateg/Senior officer gender equality
Secretariat of Commission on gender equality, Union of Baltic Cities
Stadsledningskontoret/City Manager´s office
S-901 84  UMEÅ, Sweden

e-mail: helene.brewer@umea.se
Tel +46 (0)90 16 19 15
Mobil +46 (0)70 611 4707
Fax +46 (0)90 16 23 60