Our Partners

DOMSPAIN S.L.U., SPAIN

DomSpain (DS Formacio) is a Training and Consulting Company active on a national and international level. It offers a variety of services to the public and private sectors of Spain and actively participates in international schemes.
The Training department of DomSpain develops educational programmes in four main directions:
● courses for adult learners, including foreign languages, ICT, cookery, dance and personal growth classes
● VET: ICT, foreign languages, employability, work-based learning
● trainings for educators: improving foreign language competences, use of digital tools and new teaching methods
● extracurricular activities for school children and parents, including foreign languages, coding, and internet safety
The company provides both face-to-face and online classes.
The courses and trainings are implemented in our own premises as well as at 6 community centres and 5 schools of the Tarragona province. We employ more than 40 educators and count with around 1400 students each academic year.
DomSpain has a highly qualified IT team that has implemented various national and international projects involving development of educational platforms.

It also focusses on strengthening the capacity of small-sized enterprises and organisations, as well as working on social issues, involving in our activities all community members, including employers and governmental officials at all levels.

DESINCOOP, Portugal

DESINCOOP is a services provider cooperative, established in 2005. Its mission is to provide services in the areas of economic, social, educational and cultural initiatives through innovative solutions that meet the needs of people at risk of social exclusion because of their ethnic origin, age, gender and/or disability, its territory, its Cooperators and collaborators.
The main activities are studies, consultancy, training, elaboration of projects, support for the creation and operation of Proximity Services and other cooperatives, social and cultural interventions in the community, based in the two Desincoop’ strategic vision pillars: the defense of human rights and sustainable development.

Contact person: Luísa Oliveira

LES APPRIMEURS, France

Founded in 2013, Les Apprimeurs is a private company specialised in the creation of customized digital solutions for the education, culture and training sectors. We work to promote basic and soft skills and access to knowledge for all through a series of activities:
● Design and development of enriched digital publications for youth, school and university sectors and cultural and heritage fields. We work both as a publisher for our own books and as a service provider for institutions and publishing companies.
● Digital and educational projects development aiming at providing innovative reading, learning and creative solutions, with a special focus on accessible digital tools and contents. We are involved in several European projects as coordinator and partners.
● Workshops implementation around new publication technologies to encourage their appropriation by audiences with little or no access: workshop around the code, workshop around the writing of digital books, etc.
● Training in digital project management and digital book production for professionals and students both at university & schools.

ATFCT, Romania

ATFCT trains and supervises professionals working in the field of psychology, pedagogy, medicine, social assistance, education.
It offers psychological, psychotherapeutic, and educational assistance to persons in need (individuals and groups), as well as expertise in the afore mentioned fields.
ATFCT’s experts keep training sessions, workshops, conferences, and seminars on various psychology related topics, both for professionals and for the public.
The specialized interventions carried out by our experts – psychologists, psychotherapists, pedagogues, and trainers – are tailored for individual, family, and couple difficulties, as well as systemic interventions in conflict situations.
ATFCT activates in several European funded projects as coordinator or partner.

Slovenian Third Age University, Slovenia

Slovenian Third Age University (Slovenska univerza za tretje življenjsko obdobje) is an umbrella organisation and a national network enabling older people to experience personal growth, start a new carrier and remain included in society. Since 1984, Slovenian Third Age University has grown to become a network of currently 55 universities all over Slovenia with more than 21 000 students, 1000 mentors and 1000 volunteers. Back in 1984, it started building socially engaged education and socially engaged art leading to better local development and innovative social practices that enhance older people’s personal life and life in community.

Slovenian U3A’s major fields of activities are: education for different groups of older people, education of experts in the field of adult education, geragogy and social gerontology as well as volunteering in culture. It encompasses a resource centre specialized in older adult education and other issues concerning older people. It is specialized in research and development of tailor-made educational programmes for older people, public campaigning, international trainings, etc. It has its own Institute of dyslexia focused on the advantages of specific learning difficulties in children, adults and older adults.

So far it has been engaged in more than 30 EU, national and other projects all in the field of older adult education, intergenerational learning, local community and its other research areas or andragogic interventions, dyslexia, online education, etc. It is a member of international organisations ESREA, EURAG, and co-founder of DANET, etc.

In Slovenian U3A’s view, education in later life is a way to prevent social exclusion, a way of decent and contributing living in later life. It is also a way towards achieving greater social fairness on a distributive, cultural and symbolic level (stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination). It enables older people to be active, seen and heard.

Associazione N.E.T., Italy

The Associazione N.E.T. is a not for profit association founded in 2001 by experts of the training and educational sector. Net addresses above all disadvantaged people like women, long term unemployed, elderly, disabled people and single parents to support them from a social, training and employment point of view. The association is very active at local and regional level by collaborating with public organisations and institutions like Regions, Municipalities, Local Health Units (ULSS), Universities, Chambers of Commerce but not only. Associazione N.E.T. is very active in the third sector to develop self sustainable and fair activities and to develop a sustainable economy through micro credit by collaborating with cooperatives and associations of the private sector that in Italy substitute the public sector in many situations.
Associazione N.E.T. aims at contributing to the local and regional development by organising activities and developing sustainable community projects and programmes. Recently the Association is trying to go towards fair and sustainable type of activities developing innovative actions and supporting new ideas. New objectives relates to:
– Fair self entrepreneurship
– Environment
– Organic/biodynamic agricolture
– Healthy cooking and eating
– Sustainable tourism
Associazione N.E.T. belongs to 2 important networks, one at European level and the second one at national level:
1. I care network – the widest network of charity associations and organisations in Italy. http://www.icare-italia.org/. Member since 2015
2. MAG (Mutual Organisation for self management) supporting at national level Associations, cooperatives and organisations belonging to the third
sector. Dealing above all with Fair Finance and microcredit. Member since 2001.

WISAMAR, Germany

Wisamar is an accredited, non-profit education provider founded in 2005. With a motivated team of 12, we work in in different areas of further education and training, including integration and language classes, project management, and EU Mobility.
We can look back on more than 500 successfully conducted mobility programs and over 50 projects aiming at the development or the transfer of innovations, and we are happy to share our expertise, for example as regional mobility information desk for the German National Agency.

Elvira Kralj
1900 – 1978

Too nice to be remembered?

Elvira Kralj was a Slovenian actress born in Trieste (then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire). She was born into a family that was politically engaged in defending the Slovenian national cause. The whole family was related to Sokol, a left-wing association addressing physical culture. Elvira was a member of several associations embracing different social causes though not the women’s cause specifically.

She started acting at the age of five when she played Cinderella on a stage in Trieste. After completing her studies in the local German Elementary School and two years of studies at the German Higher Trade School for Girls – boys and girls attended different schools, she started working in a law firm in Trieste. Later she graduated from a Drama school. She embodied more than 200 roles in the Maribor Theatre, and began working in the Ljubljana’s Drama, the national theatre. She convincingly portrayed a multitude of different female characters, from a kind grandmother, a nice aunt, a suffering mother, a tough woman, to evil, ironic characters on the theatre stage, TV and film screen. Her most visible role was that of the kind, loving and caring aunt (typically accepted female characteristics) in the iconic film Do Not Wait for May. Why was Elvira belittled? Despite her many roles for which she was casted...

Elvira Kralj
1900 – 1978

Too nice to be remembered?

Elvira Kralj
1900 – 1978

Too nice to be remembered?

Karla Bulovec Mrak
1895 – 1957

She was trying hard to get out of the cage

KARLA BULOVEC MRAK was a Slovenian sculptor, painter and writer who lived in three successive States that existed on the same territory. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Karla was a stubborn and rebellious person which caused her many problems and regardless of the State, she was always marginalized. She was well educated but decided to be, not a teacher, but a (female) sculptor which was not in conformity with social expectations. In 1917 she left the cage of the small provincial city of Ljubljana, and went to Munich, Vienna, Prague and Paris, where she felt relatively freed of social chains. She participated in joint exhibitions with famous Slovenian and European artists in different European countries. Her independent exhibitions, however, were sharply criticized.

She was looked down on because she was poor most of her life and did not conform with social norms. Still, present-day texts about her and her work start with “Karla Bulovec was married to Ivan Mrak”. Likewise in France the socially disturbing Simone de Beauvoir was often referred to as Jean Paul Sartre’s companion, Karla was not referred to by name. Her husband accepted her otherness and understood her, but he himself was...

Karla Bulovec Mrak
1895 – 1957

She was trying hard to get out of the cage

Karla Bulovec Mrak
1895 – 1957

She was trying hard to get out of the cage

Ilka Burger Vašte
1891 – 1967

Rebellious throughout her life

ILKA BURGER VAŠTE was one of the most prolific Slovenian female writers, a novelist who wrote ten historical novels. She attended a secondary teachers’ college and served as a teacher at the Cyril Method School in Trieste and the Girls’ school in Ljubljana. She embraced the career of a teacher, which was the only convenient profession for women in those days. Women could be either housewives, if they were married, or teachers, if they were single. She was interested in literature and painting, which she learned from Ivana Kobilica, a famous Slovenian female painter. In her novel Mejaši (Neigbours at the border) she revived the national struggle of the Slovenians against the Lombards. She was known for her deep anti-clerical and liberal beliefs. Except for a street in her native Novo mesto named after her, nothing much is known about her and she definitely belongs on the lists of belittled Slovenian female artists.

She wrote: Because I was a shy and obedient little girl, I bitterly mocked courageous women who were fighting for women’s equal rights, but became aware rather soon that I was treated unfairly just because I was a woman. I was in the shadow, because I knew very well that my parents expected me to do so, but at the same time I decided that by my own force I would gain my place in the sunshine”

Ilka Burger Vašte
1891 – 1967

Rebellious throughout her life

Ilka Burger Vašte
1891 – 1967

Rebellious throughout her life

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez
1902 – 1963

The indomitable, the woman without fear, a woman of unshakable tenacity, there are several epithets attributed to her and that we revisit today

At the age of 20 she married Carlos Aboim Inglez, whose father had been a minister in the First Republic. Both democrats, their house became a meeting point for political figures. When her husband fell ill with cancer, she decided, with 5 children, to take a degree in Literature. She became a widow at almost 40 years old and had to work hard, because she was persecuted for not being catholic and being anti-fascist. She started her political activity with the Democratic Unity Movement being the first woman to belong to the central commission (1946-1948) and later on, in 1949 in the National Democratic Movement, having an active participation in the presidential elections. Salazar used two forms of repression against her: not only imprisonment, she was arrested 3 times between 1946-1948, preventing her by all means from earning a living. In 1948, she was forbidden to run the women’s college that she had set up with her husband and where she was a teacher, which promoted a secular, progressive and social education, where students from different social strata crossed paths in the same classes. On February 11, 1949, the school was definitively closed, in retaliation for the outstanding role she had been assuming in the opposition to the regime. In the same year she was forbidden from teaching by the government...

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez
1902 – 1963

The indomitable, the woman without fear, a woman of unshakable tenacity, there are several epithets attributed to her and that we revisit today

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez
1902 – 1963

The indomitable, the woman without fear, a woman of unshakable tenacity

Maria José Estanco
1905 – 1999

They ironized that the construction would not stand... but the door was left open for future female architects

Born in Loulé, Maria José entered the School of Fine Arts to study painting. For family reasons she interrupted her studies and moved to Brazil for 2 years, where she witnessed the birth of the city of Marília, working with the Belgian engineer who directed the work. Influenced by this experience, when she returned to Lisbon she began studying Architecture, where, in 1942, she received the award for “best student in Architecture”.

Thus emerged the first Portuguese woman architect. However, despite being considered the best student, she couldn’t enter the working world because the mentalities of the time couldn’t believe that a woman was capable of making a feasible project. Even in newspapers there were caricatures of her making fun of her professional choice. It was all so difficult that she began to dedicate herself to interior decorating and furniture making. Free of charge, she created a section on these areas in the magazine M&B and taught Drawing and Painting classes at the Linhó Prison. She applied to teach and was a teacher at two High Schools. And at the Odivelas Institute.

Maria José Estanco
1905 – 1999

They ironized that the construction would not stand... but the door was left open for future female architects

Maria José Estanco
1905 – 1999

They ironized that the construction would not stand... but the door was left open for future female architects

Florbela Espanca
1894 – 1930

Rebellious affirmation of a destiny in the feminine

Born in Vila Viçosa on December 8, 1894, from an early age her life was marked by several instabilities, which deeply influenced her literary work. Her life, of only 36 years, victim of suicide, after the diagnosis of a pulmonary edema, was tumultuous, restless and full of intimate sufferings, which the author knew how to transform into poetry of the highest quality, loaded with eroticization and femininity.

In 1919, and among more than 300 students, Florbela was one of 14 women to be accepted at the University of Lisbon Law School. However, the first attempts to promote her poetry failed when she was unsuccessful at attracting the attention of literary critics. Florbela Espanca spent a short stay in Guimarães – in November 1923 – while recovering from a relapse, during which she came into contact with some people from the small community.

Florbela Espanca
1894 – 1930

Rebellious affirmation of a destiny in the feminine

Florbela Espanca
1894 – 1930

Rebellious affirmation of a destiny in the feminine

Gerda Taro
1910 – 1937

Pioneer of war photography

Gerda Taro, maiden name Pohorylle, was born in Stuttgart and educated in Leipzig, Germany. As she was from a Jewish family, she fleed from the Nazis to Paris in 1933. There she lived a bohemian lifestyle with her friend Ruth Cerf and eventually met Endre Ernő Friedmann, better known today as Robert Capa. Together, they started documenting the Spanish Civil War in 1935, after Gerda had invented their alter egos in order to better sell Endre’s and her own pictures. Inspired by their own political convictions, they only took pictures of the fight of the republican soldiers against the rebellious francoist soldiers. Both of them tried to be as close to the action as possible – a goal which eventually led to Gerda’s death. Despite the fact that her pictures only cover 1 year of the war, her pictures are those that went around the world. Together with Robert Capa and with David Seymour, during this short period of time she developed modern war photography as we know it today. Since she officially was Capa’s agent and he sold many of her pictures as his own, it took until the 2000s until people began to recognize her as an artist in her own right rather than just his partner: In 2007, the so-called Mexican Suitcase was found in Mexico City, a suitcase containing thousands of negatives believed to be lost by Capa, Taro and Seymour. Since then, many photographs originally attributed to Capa are known to have been taken by Gerda. However, during her short life, Taro was well known and when she was killed in 1937 by a tank, – she was only 26 – thousands of people attended her funeral in Paris. The funeral procession...

Gerda Taro
1910 – 1937

Pioneer of war photography

Gerda Taro
1910 – 1937

Pioneer of war photography

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
1897 – 2000

Architecture and communism: The inventor of the Frankfurt Kitchen

Magarethe Schütte-Lihotzky was one of the first female architects in Austria. Having grown up in the bourgeois Vienna society, she came into contact with the life realities of the poor working class during her studies. This sparked her interest to improve living conditions through the newly emerging social housing. Her most famous contribution was the “Frankfurt kitchen” (1926) which revolutionized the way kitchens were built. Schütte-Lihotzky designed her modular kitchen with the idea in mind that workflows can be optimized like in a factory in order to make life easier for the women who use it and who would (ideally) have more time for themselves. Politically, she sympathized with communist ideals after being disappointed with the European social democratic parties. In 1930 she is invited to work in Moscow to work in social housing projects. In 1939 she joined the Austrian Communist Party (KPÖ). After leaving Russia, she moved to Paris and then to Istanbul, where she became a member of an Austrian resistance group. In 1941 she was arrested shortly after returning to Austria and sent to serve a fifteen-year prison sentence in the women’s penitentiary in Aichach, Bavaria, from which she was liberated by allied troops in April 1945. She worked as a self-employed architect until 1969.

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
1897 – 2000

Architecture and communism: The inventor of the Frankfurt Kitchen

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
1897 – 2000

Architecture and communism: The inventor of the Frankfurt Kitchen

Marion Dönhoff
1909 – 2002

"I always wished I could see a day when we could come together on one side of the dividing river to exchange ideas, then cross the bridge together and continue on the other side."

Marion Countess Dönhoff was one of the most influential journalists of post-war Germany and editor of the prestigious weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT for 30 years. The highly educated noble woman fled east Prussia during the Russian invasion in 1945 – on horseback. Previously she had been managing the family estate for several years after returning from extensive travels through Europe, Africa, and America. Even though she had lost her beloved East Prussian homeland, she promoted the thought of “loving without possessing” rather than advocating the reclaiming of those territories. In her lifetime, she actively worked for reconciliation between the states of the Eastern Bloc and the West, supported West Germany’s active policy toward East Germany, rejected apartheid in South Africa, and continuously called for liberal thinking, tolerance, and justice in her writing. Marion Dönhoff had the ear of leading politicians during her day, among them Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Richard von Weizsäcker. She not only overcame the challenges of being a refugee, losing many of her inherited privileges and her home, she also defied the restrictive female gender roles of her time, when most women were expected to be well-behaved wives and mothers and leave decision making to men. Not only did she have a voice as a leading intellectual with political influence, she also never married and was famous...

Marion Dönhoff
1909 – 2002

"I always wished I could see a day when we could come together on one side of the dividing river to exchange ideas, then cross the bridge together and continue on the other side."

Marion Dönhoff
1909 – 2002

"I always wished I could see a day when we could come together on one side of the dividing river to exchange ideas"

Ondina Peteani
1925 – 2003

It's nice to live free

Ondina Peteani is now considered the “first” partisan relay girl but it took years of constant work after her death, to bring her story to light.

Her son Giovanni tells of how she managed to escape from the Ravensbrück concentration camp, during a prisoner march. It was not the first time she had escaped: she had gotten away with it twice before arriving in Germany. Her story would be very adventurous as it is at this point. But Ondina never let nightmare No. 81627 (her code in Auschwitz), get in the way of her plans, her brilliant idea of life. After the war she chose to be a midwife. Together with her partner Gian Luigi Brusadin, a journalist for the “Unità,” she organized the first agency of Editori Riuniti, a lively place where people could meet and talk about politics. Then Ondina created summer camps for children and organized a tent city in Maiano after the Friuli earthquake (1976). And finally as a “gray panther” with her commitment in the CGIL trade union for retired people, she invoked without mincing words that “only a pact between generations can avoid isolation and injustice”. Her son continues bringing her experience to schools highlighting how fundamental the contribution and support of the Women’s Contingent was to the National Liberation Struggle. Their presenc...

Ondina Peteani
1925 – 2003

It's nice to live free

Ondina Peteani
1925 – 2003

It's nice to live free

Anna Kuliscioff
1855 – 1925

I hope, for the triumph of the cause of my sex, just a little more solidarity among women

Anna Kuliscioff, protagonist of Italian socialism and feminism, born in 1854 in Moskaja into a wealthy family of Jewish merchants, was encouraged to cultivate her studies with private teachers and became interested in politics at a very early age. In 1871 she moved to Zurich as women were forbidden to enter the University in Russia. In 1873 Russian students were ordered to leave the University of Zurich otherwise they wouldn’t have been admitted to the final examination in Russia. This was a provocation to women as they were accused of going abroad not for study reasons but for sexual leisure. In 1888, in Italy, Anna continued her studies specializing in gynecology, first in Turin, then in Padua. She first found out about the bacterial origin of puerperal fever saving millions of women from death after childbirth. She then began to practice medicine in Milan, travelling to the city’s poorest neighborhoods. She was called the “doctor of the poor.” She was never recognized as a doctor and this was mainly caused by her social and political position. In Milan she came in contact with exponents of feminism who in 1882 had formed the League for Women’s Interests. From here on, Anna’s commitment to the women’s question became increasingly clear and pressing, culminating in her speech at the Milan Philological Circle in April 1890: The Monopoly of Man. The innovative aspect of Anna Kuliscioff’s intervention, however, lies in the way she conceived gender equality:”It is not a condemnation at any cost of the other sex that women demand; on the contrary, they aspire to obtain the conscious and active cooperation of the best men, of those who, having emancipated themselves, at least in part, from sentiments based on customs, prejudices...

Anna Kuliscioff
1855 – 1925

I hope, for the triumph of the cause of my sex, just a little more solidarity among women

Anna Kuliscioff
1855 – 1925

I hope, for the triumph of the cause of my sex, just a little more solidarity among women

Franca Rame
1929 – 2013

Actress, writer and activist for the rights of women to be seen and respected

Franca was from Villastanza, Milan, born in a family with ancient theatrical traditions, mostly related to puppet and marionette theater, dating back to the 1600s: her father was an actor and her mother was first a teacher, then an actress. On June 24, 1954, she married actor Dario Fo. From their union on March 31, 1955, their son Jacopo was born in Rome. The Fo-Rame artistic partnership lasted for more than fifty years, with hundreds of shows in different genres: farce and commedia dell’arte (including “Isabella, tre caravelle e un cacciaballe”, from 1963, in which for the first time the protagonist was a “giullaressa” a typical male figure (giullare, in english jester) played by a woman and feminized in its name); political theater (including “Bandiere rosse a Mirafiori – basta con i fascisti!” by Fo, Rame and Lanfranco Binni, 1973); civil and social theater, including “Lo stupro” (the rape), which is the most dramatic demonstration of how theater was for her the way to transform experience. The monologue evokes in a dry style the violence the artist suffered in 1973 by five neo-fascists in Milan, who would be convicted many years later. The Fo-Rame pair had become a political target, but her especially as a woman. Over the years, the shows have brought the news of the moment more and more directly to the stage, addressing social, historical and political issues including the status of women, the status of working mothers, divorce, abortion, sexual violence, drug abuse, the condition of prisoners in jail, fascism and the Resistance. In 1969, Soccorso Rosso, a movement...

Franca Rame
1929 – 2013

Actress, writer and activist for the rights of women to be seen and respected

Franca Rame
1929 – 2013

Actress, writer and activist for the rights of women to be seen and respected

Marie-Claire Chevalier
1955 – 2022

The one whose trial for illegal abortion changed the law against abortion in France

In 1971, Marie-Claire Chevalier was 16 years old when she became pregnant after being raped by a boy two years older than her in high school. The young woman asked her mother to help her have an abortion. The mother turned to an underground doctor, but her daughter suffered a hemorrhage that forced her to go the hospital. Her rapist, arrested for stealing a car, decided to turn her in against his own freedom. She was directly accused, as were four other women, including her mother, because in 1971 the voluntary termination of a pregnancy was illegal in France and punishable by six months to two years in prison. She was then convicted at the Bobigny trial and all were defended by lawyer Gisèle Halimi.

Gisèle Halimi made this trial and Marie-Claire Chevalier a political symbol for the right to abortion. The case will forever mark French history and symbolize real progress for women’s rights. Extremely mediatized, the trial closely followed by many personalities ended with a brilliant victory. Three years later with this judgement, things started to move. This event contributed to the adoption of the Veil law and the legalization of abortion in France in 1975.

Marie-Claire Chevalier
1955 – 2022

The one whose trial for illegal abortion changed the law against abortion in France

Marie-Claire Chevalier
1955 – 2022

The one whose trial for illegal abortion changed the law against abortion in France

Thérèse Clerc
1927-2016

Activist for the rights of elderly women, the third wave of feminism

Thérèse Clerc, was a French feminist activist, born on December 9, 1927 in Paris and died on February 16, 2016 in Montreuil, who worked to defend the rights of women, and more specifically those of older women.

At the age of 20, she learned the fashion design profession and married a small entrepreneur who owned an industrial cleaning business. At the turn of May 1968, she advocated for free abortion and contraception within the MLAC movement (Movement for Free Abortion and Contraception). A year later, in 1969, she divorced her husband and bought an apartment in Montreuil, where she performed abortions for free.

Always with the aim of helping women, in 2000, she founded in Montreuil the “House of Women” open to women of all ages, victims of violence, in insertion or reinsertion. Then, in the same year, still in Montreuil, she wanted to found the “House of Babayagas”, an “anti-retirement house” self-managed by the residents, elderly and low-income, around the values of citizenship, secularism, solidarity, ecology and feminism. But she faced some discrimination because...

Thérèse Clerc
1927-2016

Activist for the rights of elderly women, the third wave of feminism

Thérèse Clerc
1927-2016

Activist for the rights of elderly women, the third wave of feminism

Dimitrana Ivanova
1881 – 1960

If you want to know what perseverance looks like, read her story.

Dimitrana Ivanova, maiden name Petrova, was the daughter of a craftsman and trader and of a priest’s daughter. She was born in Rousse, a big city in Bulgaria at the time, and she graduated the high school for girls there. She married Doncho Ivanov in 1914, thus becoming Dimitrana Ivanova.

Because at the time the high school for girls had one grade less than the boys, this would serve as a pretext to deny women access to higher education at the Bulgarian University in Sofia, so Dimitrana had no other choice but to enroll in a foreign university, Zurich University in Switzerland, where she took pedagogy and philosophy classes. Due to several family tragedies and her family’s bankruptcy, she had to return home before her final exam and could not get back to take it, so she did not graduate. She was forced to seek employment and she became a teacher, passing all the legally required exams to become one. As a teacher, Dimitrana’s career was often affected by several discriminatory laws (married women were not allowed to work; later they were permitted to work after getting married, but they had to accept a reduced salary; female teachers had to retire by the age of 40 and the number of female teachers in a certain district could not exceed the number of male teachers).

Dimitrana Ivanova
1881 – 1960

If you want to know what perseverance looks like, read her story.

Dimitrana Ivanova
1881 – 1960

If you want to know what perseverance looks like, read her story.

Florica Bagdasar
1901 – 1978

A doctor, a politician, the first female minister in Romania, a person who led to change everywhere she had been.

Florica Bagdasar, maiden name Ciumetti, was born in Monastir, now Macedonian territory, in a Macedo-Romanian family – Romanians originating from the South of Danube. Because of World War I, the family was forced to move a lot and after attending different secondary schools, she finally graduated in 1925 from the Medicine Faculty in Bucharest.

In 1927 she married a fellow doctor, Dumitru Bagdasar, with whom she soon left to study in the United States, at Harvard University. While there she received a Rockefeller scholarship and specialized in neurosurgery. After their return to Romania, they opened a neurosurgery clinic in Bucharest, which they managed as a team. Further down her professional road, she chose to specialize in infantile neuropsychiatry – a specialty that she would also promote during her teaching position – and elaborated several educational materials for children.

Florica Bagdasar
1901 – 1978

A doctor, a politician, the first female minister in Romania, a person who led to change everywhere she had been.

Florica Bagdasar
1901 – 1978

A doctor, a politician, the first female minister in Romania, a person who led to change everywhere she had been.

Elisabeta Rizea
1912 – 2003

Despite suffering severe torture, she kept defending her beliefs and supported a group of anti-communist partisans.

Elisabeta was born into a family of peasants (Șuța) in a village in Southern Romania – Domnești, Argeș county. She got married at 19 years old and took the last name of her husband, Gheorghe Rizea.

She was set on track for an ordinary country life, but little did she know that the end of World War II would mean the beginning of her own war with the communist authorities, imposed by the Soviet army during that time. Her uncle, a local leader of the National Peasants’ Party, was killed by the secret police, which led her husband to join an anti-communist guerilla group, led by Colonel Gheorghe Arsenescu. Thus, Elisabeta became an informant and supplies provider for the group.

Elisabeta Rizea
1912 – 2003

Despite suffering severe torture, she kept defending her beliefs and supported a group of anti-communist partisans.

Elisabeta Rizea
1912 – 2003

Despite suffering severe torture, she kept defending her beliefs and supported a group of anti-communist partisans.

María Goyri
1873 – 1954

The fact that she was a woman put her in the shadow of the famous man - her husband.

Researcher, philologist, educator, writer and active advocate of women’s rights. She is the first woman to graduate from a Spanish university with a degree in philosophy and writing. Her studies on Spanish ballads, carried out with her husband Ramón Menéndez Pidal, laid the foundations for research in the field, although only her husband’s name became known. She was also one of the first women to go to a gym to fight the arthritis she suffered from at a young age, a very unusual activity for a girl at that time.

Maria Goyri was born in Madrid and raised by her mother who made sure that her daughter received a very well planned and organised education at home. She continued her formal education and received the titles of Governess and Professor of Commerce as well as the title of a teacher. First, she attended the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters without enrolling, and a year later applied for permission to open a women’s study programme. The authorization was granted, but on the condition that she wouldn’t communicate with male students, enter the classroom next to the professor, and sit in a separate chair next to him during class. She was the first official female student...

María Goyri
1873 – 1954

The fact that she was a woman put her in the shadow of the famous man - her husband.

María Goyri
1873 – 1954

The fact that she was a woman put her in the shadow of the famous man - her husband.

María Bernaldo de Quirós
1898 – 1983

As public opinion evolves, people will realize that women can do more than just embroidery.

María de la Salud Bernaldo de Quirós y Bustillo was the first Spanish woman to obtain a pilot's license and to take advantage of the Divorce Law of the Republic.

She came from an aristocratic family and received a good education, but was attracted to aviation at a young age. She was married twice, the first marriage being a real tragedy (she lost her husband and 2 children). During her second marriage, thanks to her friendships in aviation circles, she decided to follow her vocation and started training.

When María enrolled in the Spanish Royal Air Club, she was the only woman out of eighteen students. Her instructor claimed that women lacked the spirit of sacrifice necessary for flying, but he considered María an exceptional student. By the time she received her license, she had already separated from her husband. She was also one of the first women to take advantage of the Divorce Law of the second Republic. Once she had the license...

María Bernaldo de Quirós
1898 – 1983

As public opinion evolves, people will realize that women can do more than just embroidery.

María Bernaldo de Quirós
1898 – 1983

As public opinion evolves, people will realize that women can do more than just embroidery.

Maria Lejárraga
1874 – 1974

She was writing and her husband harvesting the glory, fame and money!

Writer, feminist, deputy, polyglot and socialist who opposed to the death penalty and legal prostitution. She advocated for education, work and equal rights for women in Spain. A very open-minded and visionary woman who had to pay a high price imposed by her gender.

María Lejárraga comes from the region of La Rioja from an economically stable middle class family. She was able to receive good education and became a teacher. During her teaching career she discovered her passion for writing. She was very talented and ready to share her ideas and stories with the world. But, that´s where she bumped into a big obstacle. At the beginning of the XX century being a female writer was seen as immoral work, especially for an educator. If she had risked meeting her goals, she could have lost her teaching job. She found a solution to this problem in her marriage by publishing her works under her husband's name. So, she was writing and waiting at home and he was the one receiving praise and applause at the premiers of the plays. Before dying, her husband confirmed the rumours circulating in theatre circles that she was the true author of his works.

Maria Lejárraga
1874 – 1974

She was writing and her husband harvesting the glory, fame and money!

Maria Lejárraga
1874 – 1974

She was writing and her husband harvesting the glory, fame and money!

Our Partners

DOMSPAIN S.L.U., SPAIN

DESINCOOP, Portugal

LES APPRIMEURS, France

ATFCT, Romania

Slovenian Third Age University, Slovenia

Associazione N.E.T., Italy

WISAMAR, Germany

Elvira Kralj 1900 – 1978

Elvira Kralj 1900 – 1978

Elvira Kralj 1900 – 1978

Karla Bulovec Mrak 1895 – 1957

Karla Bulovec Mrak 1895 – 1957

Karla Bulovec Mrak 1895 – 1957

Ilka Burger Vašte 1891 – 1967

Ilka Burger Vašte 1891 – 1967

Ilka Burger Vašte 1891 – 1967

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez 1902 – 1963

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez 1902 – 1963

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez 1902 – 1963

Maria José Estanco 1905 – 1999

Maria José Estanco 1905 – 1999

Maria José Estanco 1905 – 1999

Florbela Espanca 1894 – 1930

Florbela Espanca 1894 – 1930

Florbela Espanca 1894 – 1930

Gerda Taro 1910 – 1937

Gerda Taro 1910 – 1937

Gerda Taro 1910 – 1937

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky 1897 – 2000

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky 1897 – 2000

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky 1897 – 2000

Marion Dönhoff 1909 – 2002

Marion Dönhoff 1909 – 2002

Marion Dönhoff 1909 – 2002

Ondina Peteani 1925 – 2003

Ondina Peteani 1925 – 2003

Ondina Peteani 1925 – 2003

Anna Kuliscioff 1855 – 1925

Anna Kuliscioff 1855 – 1925

Anna Kuliscioff 1855 – 1925

Franca Rame 1929 – 2013

Franca Rame 1929 – 2013

Franca Rame 1929 – 2013

Marie-Claire Chevalier 1955 – 2022

Marie-Claire Chevalier 1955 – 2022

Marie-Claire Chevalier 1955 – 2022

Rosalind Franklin 1920 – 1958

Rosalind Franklin 1920 – 1958

Rosalind Franklin 1920 – 1958

Thérèse Clerc 1927-2016

Thérèse Clerc 1927-2016

Thérèse Clerc 1927-2016

Dimitrana Ivanova 1881 – 1960

Dimitrana Ivanova 1881 – 1960

Dimitrana Ivanova 1881 – 1960

Florica Bagdasar 1901 – 1978

Florica Bagdasar 1901 – 1978

Florica Bagdasar 1901 – 1978

Elisabeta Rizea 1912 – 2003

Elisabeta Rizea 1912 – 2003

Elisabeta Rizea 1912 – 2003

María Goyri 1873 – 1954

María Goyri 1873 – 1954

María Goyri 1873 – 1954

María Bernaldo de Quirós 1898 – 1983

María Bernaldo de Quirós 1898 – 1983

María Bernaldo de Quirós 1898 – 1983

Maria Lejárraga 1874 – 1974

Maria Lejárraga 1874 – 1974

Maria Lejárraga 1874 – 1974

Elvira Kralj
1900 – 1978

Elvira Kralj
1900 – 1978

Elvira Kralj
1900 – 1978

Karla Bulovec Mrak
1895 – 1957

Karla Bulovec Mrak
1895 – 1957

Karla Bulovec Mrak
1895 – 1957

Ilka Burger Vašte
1891 – 1967

Ilka Burger Vašte
1891 – 1967

Ilka Burger Vašte
1891 – 1967

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez
1902 – 1963

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez
1902 – 1963

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez
1902 – 1963

Maria José Estanco
1905 – 1999

Maria José Estanco
1905 – 1999

Maria José Estanco
1905 – 1999

Florbela Espanca
1894 – 1930

Florbela Espanca
1894 – 1930

Florbela Espanca
1894 – 1930

Gerda Taro
1910 – 1937

Gerda Taro
1910 – 1937

Gerda Taro
1910 – 1937

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
1897 – 2000

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
1897 – 2000

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
1897 – 2000

Marion Dönhoff
1909 – 2002

Marion Dönhoff
1909 – 2002

Marion Dönhoff
1909 – 2002

Ondina Peteani
1925 – 2003

Ondina Peteani
1925 – 2003

Ondina Peteani
1925 – 2003

Anna Kuliscioff
1855 – 1925

Anna Kuliscioff
1855 – 1925

Anna Kuliscioff
1855 – 1925

Franca Rame
1929 – 2013

Franca Rame
1929 – 2013

Franca Rame
1929 – 2013

Marie-Claire Chevalier
1955 – 2022

Marie-Claire Chevalier
1955 – 2022

Marie-Claire Chevalier
1955 – 2022

Rosalind Franklin
1920 – 1958

Rosalind Franklin
1920 – 1958

Rosalind Franklin
1920 – 1958

Thérèse Clerc
1927-2016

Thérèse Clerc
1927-2016

Thérèse Clerc
1927-2016

Dimitrana Ivanova
1881 – 1960

Dimitrana Ivanova
1881 – 1960

Dimitrana Ivanova
1881 – 1960

Florica Bagdasar
1901 – 1978

Florica Bagdasar
1901 – 1978

Florica Bagdasar
1901 – 1978

Elisabeta Rizea
1912 – 2003

Elisabeta Rizea
1912 – 2003

Elisabeta Rizea
1912 – 2003

María Goyri
1873 – 1954

María Goyri
1873 – 1954

María Goyri
1873 – 1954

María Bernaldo de Quirós
1898 – 1983

María Bernaldo de Quirós
1898 – 1983

María Bernaldo de Quirós
1898 – 1983

Maria Lejárraga
1874 – 1974

Maria Lejárraga
1874 – 1974

Maria Lejárraga
1874 – 1974