OUR HISTORY

The international non-profit organization Donne del Mediterraneo (Women of the Mediterranean) was born in the 1998 for will of different institutional, academic and cultural bodies, national, international and of the Mediterranean countries, with the exact intent to constitute a network of women and men and a link between all the female associations existing on the territory.

Its social purpose is to give a contribution to the socioeconomic development of the Euro-Mediterranean territory and to sustainable tourism, to favour and to promote the interchange of information, experiences and projects, to facilitate the international cooperation and to sensitize public and private decision-makers, in particular on problems concerning women.

The President of the Association is Hon. Adriana Poli Bortone,Deputy Mayor of the city of Lecce (Italy), member of the European Parliament and President of the Euro-Mediterranean Cultural Heritage Agency.

The Secretary General is Anna Torraco, international advisor of tourism and territorial marketing.

Within the Board of Directors there is a Committee of the Guarantors, composed of women Ministers of the Mediterranean countries (actually 38 Ministers), who have the relevant function of addressing the Association on political and social issues: they can assume mediator functions in general problems on political and social matters of the Mediterranean, and give recommendations or written opinions on themes of general interest concerning Mediterranean politics, and the Board of Directors is obliged to divulge them. The aim is to give voice to selected persons, representatives of popular will.

The main axes on which Women of the Mediterranean bases its actions are:
1. The socio-economic development of the Euro-Mediterranean territory
2. The human rights
3. The sustainable tourism
4. The constitution and the strengthening of the international network
5. The sensitization of Governments to the abolition of the death sentence.

Among the numerous initiatives carried out, we promoted and coordinated an international mission in Montenegro in the October 1999, at the conclusion of the Balkans war, aimed to individualize the priorities of the population and to work on the economic and social recovery of those territories. In that occasion we opened a foreign seat of our Association in the city of Kotor, thanks to the public institutions of the country.

In Italy we organized during the period September 2000/February 2001 a cycle of seminars in 78 Italian cities, on the theme "Women and tourism: how to live and build a sustainable tourism. Challenges and opportunities”. All the Italian newspapers wrote of the project and about eight million people have been involved. We wanted to open a debate on the whole national territory on the various themes connected to tourism, to its sustainability and to the impact of it on the life of people, of the residents and of those who usually travel.

The aim was to verify and to analyze the female world which operates in this sector, giving voice to the women tourist operators, those who "make" tourism and reinvent it every day, and to women that "live" tourism, travel, choose, discover new opportunities of occupation, and sometimes meet some difficulties or safety problems. But the aim was even to strengthen the role of women, to be no more only a spectator but an integral part of the development of the territory.
The initiative had the patronage and the collaboration of several Italian Ministries and of ANCI (Association of the Italian Municipalities).
All the data and documents had been elaborated and presented to the world conference on tourism organized by INTA (www.inta-aivn.org), held in Turin on February 2001.
We intend to widen this debate in the near feature to other Mediterranean countries, scheduling together a great conference on women and tourism in the Mediterranean.

From the 18 to 19 of July 2001, two days before the G8 that took place in Genoa, we held an international meeting named "WEMED G8 PLUS” with the participation of a technical-political Committee composed of institutional women and women belonging to the civil society from all over the world, who elaborated a document named “Declaration of Women on Development” sent to the Head of States of the G8 and to the Governments all over the world.

We organized various meetings and international congresses with the aim to strengthen the cooperation between the Mediterranean countries.

We are currently involved in the project named WEMED PLUS, on the themes of innovation, ICT and women in Public Institutions: the project has the patronage and the collaboration of the Italian Presidency of the Cabinet, of 11 Italian Ministries and of various institutional and private bodies, on a national and international level.
The project is articulated throughout a series of actions, such as a verification of the “good practices” on the whole national territory, an announcement of competition, a White Book, an international conference to be held in Italy in 2008, with all the countries of the world invited to participate with their institutional delegations, and a series of meetings at the Italian Embassies abroad, to promote the White Book and the Italian Public Administrations.

We launched in 2004 a solidarity project named “A future for Beslan”, dedicated to the population of the Beslan tragedy (the attack to the School n. 1 in Ossetia – Russia made by terrorists on September 2004), and we carried out many actions for them such as for example hosting in Italy in summer 2005 a group of 30 former hostages (17 children and 13 adults) for an entire month for a holiday from North to South along our country. The group has been received also by the President of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

During these years we received many international recognitions for our work (also a silver medal by the President of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi), and in 2004 an invitation by the Economic Commission of United Nations in Santiago of Chile, where we presented our project WEMED PLUS as unique European organization speaking of women in Public Institutions and the use of ICT.

We are promoters and partners in different Community and international projects in the various sectors connected to development.