The District Secretariat of Education (SED, as per the acronym in Spanish) was awarded in 'The Ibero-American Awards (UIM) for best local practices with a gender approach' for the initiative 'A fuego', an experience that promotes the vocations of girls, young girls, adolescents, and young women in science.
"’A Fuego' has become an innovative pedagogical perspective, with a differential approach that proposes a debate around and reflection on gender roles and sexist stereotypes present in the collective imaginary," said the Secretary of Education, Edna Bonilla.
‘A Fuego' is an SED program that seeks to promote learning about the contributions of women in STEM areas (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), create educational experiences around the role of women in the creation of scientific knowledge; and increase the interest of girls, adolescents, and young women in these professional careers.
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According to the justification presented by the Ministry of Education in the call for the awards, the Colombian Observatory of Science and Technology showed in 2016 that the percentage of researchers by gender that year was 62.63% men and 37.37% women, compared to countries with greater parity such as Argentina (47.97% men - 53.03% women) and Uruguay (50.06% men - 49.94% women).
This shows an enormous gap in the participation of girls, young women, and women in science, which means it is both timely and relevant to develop strategies that promote critical reflection in educational communities on sexist stereotypes and gender roles in the production of scientific knowledge.
Below we share a tweet from Edna Bonilla, Secretary of Education, related to the recognition award given to the entity:
Dos maravillosas noticias para @Bogota@ClaudiaLopez 1)Recibimos mención en los Premios Iberoamericanos a Buenas Prácticas Locales con Enfoque de Género por la experiencia ”A Fuego”y 2)Según @mineducacion,tuvimos una de las cifras de deserción más bajas de los últimos 30 años🧵 pic.twitter.com/LWbFQ1OXwI
— Edna Bonilla Sebá (@EdnaBonillaSeba) September 6, 2022
The 'A Fuego' experience had four objectives:
TO PRESENT living and current female role models who stand out in the production of knowledge in different areas, with the aim of configuring new aspirational models.
TO PROMOTE the teaching of history from a feminist perspective that gives meaning to the historical events presented and makes visible women’s historical contributions to science.
TO STRENGTHEN critical reading and creative writing skills to encourage expression and subjectification processes in students.
TO TEACH teachers and students about notions, concepts, currents, and fundamental terms for the understanding of feminism and the gender approach as a political theory, social movement, analytical categories, and conceptual body.
Currently, the initiative has achieved the participation of approximately 300 students from ten (10) official schools, which led to the creation of an exercise of children's participation in creative writing, with the objective of contributing to the dissemination of boys’ and girls’ opinions and feelings regarding the life and work of Colombian women scientists and critical reflection for the configuration of more egalitarian scenarios.
In addition, as a result of the work carried out, this initiative was also included as part of the pedagogical activations carried out in the city to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (February 11, 2022) and in the digital publication of the city's ‘Red Académica’ educational portal.
After evaluating this experience, the jury of the VI Edition of the UIM Ibero-American Awards for Best Local Practices with a Gender Approach, composed of the Board of Directors of the Ibero-American Network of Municipalities for Gender Equality and the Evaluation Committee of the Ibero-American Union of Municipalities, decided to grant a special mention to the District's Secretariat of Education in the 'STEM: Women, science and technology' category.
The award ceremony will take place as part of of the VI Ibero-American Summit of Local Gender Agendas, to be held in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Spain from October 18 to 21, 2022.
