Zoom-in 1: Engaging women in a masculine neighbourhood

The first episode of the ForwArt podcast looks at the gender perspective of project activities. ForwArt aims to achieve transformation with the power of art, to create North Tilburg in the south of the Netherlands from a place to hide to a place of pride. Although the gender perspective of the project was not prominent in the work plan, when activities started the gender perspective turned out to be a key aspect for succes.

ForwArt project was designed to give hope to the youth of North Tilburg. Prior to the project a large scale participatory design process was conducted on the future of the neighbourhood, called ARENA process. The inhabitants voted for security as the major issue in the neighbourhood and arts and artistic expression as the way to move forward. This was also based on the successes of Corpo Maquina dance group who started to engage local youth, mostly boys and to build up nationally known local "role models".

We discuss issues such as:

• In what sense is North Tilburg masculine?
• How did the change happened to focus on girls activities?
• Why is it important to focus on girls and women in reaching out to the community?
• Was it difficult to engage women in project activities?

Invited partners in the discussion are: 

• Paul Cornelissen, project manager of ForwArt 
• Chiara Riboch, senior youth worker, Contourde Twern (R-newt) 
• Nissrine Chemri, outreach worker Het Zuidelijk Toneel 
• Els Petit, creative director of Fashion Clash

The podcast was created on the premises and with the help of Omroep Tilburg