The project is called "Embracing the future: (Trans)Forming oneself into a leader", and it is exclusively directed at female students. With this project the Nursing School of Coimbra, in partnership with the Graal Association, aims at developing leadership competences among its students, through direct contact with Portuguese women who perform relevant functions in the several activity sectors.
The idea consists of selecting 20 Nursing Degree students, as well as voluntary women who occupy important posts in society - in organisations, in companies, in the political, social or economic field - so as to, within a period of one year, make the students become aware of how these women achieved their current positions.
Seminars of discussion and the use of new communication technologies are foreseen for this contact work between adult leaders and teenage students seeking leadership. The ESEnfC students will also have to spend some time at the workplaces of the women who, in a way, will serve as models.
A further aim is to make "senior" women aware of the difficulties that teenagers face today when trying to achieve these positions.
«What we want with this project is to develop leadership competences among young women. We want them to feel that it is possible to reconcile their personal and family life with their professional life and to break through obstacles. We are aware of the fact that we, the Portuguese, are not very entrepreneurial and that, for cultural reasons, this situation is even worse among women. But we also know that when women are the owners or managers of a company, they are better capable of optimising available resources, when compared to men», says Professor Maria Neto, one of the responsible teachers for the project.
One innovative aspect of the project is the fact that students will end up persuading men to share power, aiming at conciliating more and better the different dimensions of the personal, family and professional life, both in the case of women and men.
This project is the result of the contact with other pioneer experiences, within the scope of women's leadership, developed in Europe, including Portugal.
The Graal is a social and cultural association, inspired by an international movement of women engaged in changing the world (Graal Movement), which was founded eight decades ago in Holland.
The project "Embracing the future: (Trans)Forming oneself into a leader" applied to funding within the scope of the QREN (National Strategic Reference Framework).
