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Shemakes World Café

Goals of the get-together

Within the SheMakes project we are trying to formulate the common perspective on women innovators and the gender gap, and to come up with guidelines for the labs to become an enabling environment for women. We do that in the World Café by:

  • Co-creating a safe space for the conversation to happen openly and identifying the shared vision/point of view of our community towards bridging the gender gap. 
  • Coming up with key Policy Recommendations

Additional discussion - topics

You can bring pre determined questions/problems you would like to discuss within the activity or take 5 - 10min to have a brainstorm of topics to be discussed in a common theme.

  • ”What would a society with gender equality look like?”
  • ”Why do we have more men in management positions or as CEO’s?”
  • ”Are we so used to inequality that we don't realize it exists?”

MATERIAL AND TOOLS

  • Round or folding tables ( 4 or 5 people to a table)
  • 4 or 5 chairs per table
  • Tablecloth for each table or Cover with paper
  • Set of Post-its on each table for participants drawing/notes/doodles
  • Flower vase and flowers (small) for each table
  • Markers - thin or medium felt tip water based pens in a variety of darker colors for each table
  • Roll of mural paper (for harvesting and posting collective insights)
  • Artist tape (sticks but easily comes off without tearing the paper)
  • Push pins (for graphic recording or displaying table graphics)
  • Bell or chime to alert participants of timing or to get their attention
  • Coffee, tea, water
  • Variety of sizes of post-it notes (especially 3 x 5 or 4 x 6 unlined)
  • Rolling white boards, flip chart tripods or flat wall space for the mural paper or posting table doodle sheets


ROLES

We reccomend at least 2 people to run the activity, in groups with more than 10 participants, a third person might be needed.

  • Facilitator/ Moderator
  • Observer: Someone taking notes, writng down the interesting quotes and also keeping track of the results of the exercise (where did people positioned themselves)
  • Documenting the process: pictures & videos (don't forget to have the consent forms signed)


PREPARATION


AGENDA 2H SESSION

  1. Welcome & Shemakes Intro & Theme of the World Café (15 min)
  2. Questions/ Problems and Brainstorming (15 min)
  3. Activity (60 min - 4 rounds of 15min in each table)
  4. Conclusions and Reflections (20 min)


1 - Welcome & Shemakes intro & Theme of the World Café (15 min)

  • Shemakes introduction & goal: Empowering future female innovators of the sustainable fashion industry through inspiration, skills and networks. Within the shemakes project we use a three-pronged approach to reach our goals. We provide innovative learning paths for girls and women of various ages, concrete business support and connections, and inspiring stories of female role models.
  • The gender “question/ situation”: Women in the textile and clothing industry are currently most represented in the lowest-paying jobs; their positions are affected by systemic gender constructs while their natural and acquired skills are assigned low value in traditional business structures.
  • Goal of the day: Within the SheMakes project we are trying to formulate our community perspective on women innovators and the gender gap, and to come up with guidelines for the labs to become an enabling environment for women. alternative version: We aim to create a space for people to feel comfortable in sharing their own experiences and perspectives, understand and learn from different point of views and together think of possible solutions to the situation
  • World Café: a provocative metaphor enabling us to see new ways to make a difference in our lives and work. The power of conversation is so invisible and natural that we usually overlook it. For example, consider all the learning and action choices that occur as people move from one conversation to another inside our organizations and communities. The theme we chose to discuss during our World Café was the Gender Gap, but you can bring to the table any topic you desire.


2 - Questions/ Problems and Brainstorming (15 min)

What problems do you feel happen around the gender gap? From your experience what doubts and questions do you have surrounding the gender gap?

Write on post-it (or post-its), we glue them all together creating a question cloud, each one explains their post-its before gluing on the board during the first 10 minutes. During the last 5 minutes, each participant uses 3 sticky circles to vote on the three questions they feel are the most important to discuss during the world café.


3 - Activity (60 min (4 rounds of 15min in each table)

Create a group of 3 - 4 people per table, distribute the 3 - 4 voted questions/problems per table and have 15 min rounds of discussions, when the time is over 15 min choose one person to stay behind and rotate the rest of the team towards the next table. In each table rotation the team member that is left behind The activity is over after every team has passed through each table. The full instructions for hosting a World Café can be downloaded here

World Café participants brainstorming

4 - Conclusions and Reflections (20 min)

Each table will share with the rest of the participantes de final results from the table discussion and open a discussion with everyone focused on building final policy recommendations that will be written using the above tamplate by one of the moderators that will be with the listener role.

Last update: October 6, 2022