Parkgatan 12
26776 Ekeby
Sweden
- Democracy and community development
- Gender
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- International/Cultural relations
- Youth and education
Non-governmental non-profit organization ProQvi was established in 2010 and started as a forum for women with foreign background to meet and support each other’s ambitions, ideas and learning. Proqvi promotes women and youth empowerment, cultural meetings and active citizenship in segregated areas, primarily for women and young people. We are fully volunteer-driven, non-partisan organisation. Today the organisation has office in Helsingborg and a learning center /training location in Hästveda/Hässleholm, Sweden.
There are about 50 members in it and we work through personal coaching, opinion building, arranging events and projects to promote cross-sectoral collaboration, social entrepreneurship and intercultural dialogue.
Our specific focus is in raising awareness and doing case studies of issues connected to the local policies and conditions for personal development, limitations and problematic premises where needs of an individual or a group of people get underprioritized due to lack of research, attention, knowledge or because of a strong tradition that has an inhibiting effect on local development.
The social context that we operate in can be described as area with strong segregated values (e.i. conventional occupations, lack of interest for social innovations and entrepreneurship, a low value of education and career building, low trust in active citizenship position, high rate of inequality and hostile attitudes towards representatives of other ethnical groups) so we build our our resilience as we go.
Main operation areas in Sweden: Skåne, a local department in Stockholm and Halmstad. We implement projects with West Africa and Europe.
Main directions of work:
- experiments on the edge of culture and social challenges,
- gender issues
- social entrepreneurship and local development,
- identity search support and
- recognition of deviant competences.
We have been working with matters of gender equality, inclusion and diversity in youth work for more than 10 years now and our particular focus lays in recognition of skills and competences and countering outsidership. Our projects usually target "shadow kids", young people whose premises are neither good nor bad enough to be clearly addressed, therefore they lack common ways of being involved in democratic participation. How would that happen... Often we end up in discussions around mental ill-health &co but also inclusive project design (activities rather done by than for the target groups) and systems of public administration of such initiatives. Quite a diversity for a topic right there.
We constantly search for how to lift the least discussed questions by supporting our members’ initiatives. Whatever daring they might appear, there is a lot of learning in each experiment. We believe that the way to a strong and sustainable society lies through each and every person’s happiness, and happiness is when you are safe, surrounded by those who understand you, and doing what you love.
Through time, the activities within the organization have developed. From Saturday meetings when we were practising Swedish and training physically, we have moved on to the local society information support, swimming school for adult women and even widened our views to include youngsters’ and experimental events: culture festivals and exchanges.
Find out more www.proqvi.se/projekts/ - www.projectpocket.se - www.outintic.life
I am searching for more opportunities to connect to other organisations working for sustainble future, to learn from each other and to empower projects and initiatives together.