Plazandreok belongs to an advisory board that counsels the Municipal Service for Women’s Affairs of the City Hall of Donostia- San Sebastian.
The following are the activities in which Plazandreok participates:
This Forum is made up of women from different areas, and includes women who belong to municipal associations or political parties, women who participate as individuals and women technicians from different areas of the Donostia- San Sebastian City Hall. Plazandreok has been a part of this initiative since its beginnings.
This initiative came about within the framework of the IV Program of Community Action between Men and Women, after a seminar and certain recommendations set forth by the Maria Aurelia Capmany Foundation of Barcelona. It is coordinated by the Women’s Council of the Donostia- San Sebastian City Hall. Its principal objective is to observe and reflect on the city from the perspective of gender, with the certainty that our necessities have not been taken into account in urban planning and that it is precisely we as women who most suffer the consequences of urban policies.
After having carried out several seminars in the beginning of 1998, a central group was formed to deal with questions that affect the entire city; four other groups in different neighbourhoods were formed to deal with problems more specific to each area of the city.
The central group of the Forum on Women and the City has, during its first stage, worked on two emblematic themes which affect the lives of the women of Donostia- San Sebastian. The first to be dealt with proposed streamlining and enlarging public transport, and changing the regulations which impede the access of baby carriages and strollers on public buses...etc.; the second concerned the underground passage which runs below the train station, uniting the neighbourhood of Egia with the city center, and which is, due to its characteristics (badly lit, too long and isolated) forms an obstacle to the free circulation of people, especially women.
The neighbourhood groups have concentrated their activity in more concrete areas. The group of the neighbourhood of Intxaurrondo has concerned itself with the children’s parks, railings and a hill which blocked and hindered mobility; the group of the neighbourhood of Altza has concerned itself with the gratings which cover the drains, the recovery of areas that can be used for gathering and diversion, or the necessity for fountains in the parks; the group of the neighbourhood of Amara Zaharra has dealt with the neighbourhood’s problems of hygiene and cleanliness; the group of the neighbourhood of Egia has dealt with damaged and dangerous pavements and steps.
At present Plazandreok participates actively in the Central and Intxaurrondo group of the Forum.
This Committee unites the different Municipal Women’s Associations in order to set up and coordinate the activities that take place during the celebration of International Women’s Day.
In this organism, which meets without a set schedule, the various Women’s Associations put forth suggestions and proposals and, in theory at least, it constitutes a democratic control of the Donostia Women’s Services.
Commission on Abuse of Women
This group reviews municipal actions in the area of women’s abuse. This work group was formed at the suggestion of Plazandreok and functions with the objective of coordinating actions in all the instances of intervention when abuse is reported, in order to assure improvement in the attention given to abused women.