Socio-economic Empowerment of Women and IT:the practices & lessons From the Provincial Government

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1 Socio-economic Empowerment of Women and IT:the practices & lessons From the Provincial Government Cho Jung Ah and Huh Jung Eun 1 Republic of Korea Korea has achieved leadership in IT with its highly advanced IT technology, which has also become an important sector of socio-economics. In spite of Korea s Confucian ideologies and patriarchal culture, the Korea Government and various civil organizations have worked hard to open new opportunities for women in the fast emergence of new knowledge based and information society. A local government in Korea established a Gyeonggi Women s Development Center to empower woemn s socio-economic activities. This study lists various lessons we have learned through the center, which is dedicated ro encouraging women s leadership roles in various informational fields, to contribute to the empowerment of all women in the world. In summary, all policies and executions for the empowerment of women must have gender awareness in every aspect. In means that an organization must consider gender awareness to design and operate its vision and leadership, educate its members, and compose spaces for daily activities. By doing so, we will be able to achieve true empowerment of women. Gyeonggi Women s Development Center have hired professional and skillful women with a strong sense of gender equality for our leadership positions and trained them to take care of and nurture all women in our society. By highlighting good practices undertaken by the provincial government in recent years, this paper is to exemplify gender concerns and gender-related challenges in human development. In 1997, our projects launched for giving women equal opportunities to economic resources, including access to education. The purpose of this paper is to show the practices and lessons conducted by the provincial government. Gender and development do not occur within discrete or separate households and communities. In gender-responsive planning, it is important to analyze opportunities and constraints to women s development arising from personal, familial and other external factors. Constraints and opportunities to gender and development may be found in any or all of the following, among other factors : The person human resources available for program planning and implementation An angle of vision mission statement, gender-specific point of view, advocacy for gender interests Organizational strength a public institution Political conditions budget, representation of women in decision-making bodies, presence or absence of gender-sensitive politicians and policy makers in state parliament Inter-organizational covenants participation of non-governmental and governments in interorganizational conventions and agreements on gender and development Associated empowerment individual capacity building, familial gender relations, peer to peer rapport 1 Ms. Cho Jung Ah has received masters and completed courses in women s studies at Ewha Womans University and is currently working for PhD. thesis on women s issues, and Ms. Huh Jung Eun is currently studying PhD. coursework from the department of social welfare at Gangnam University.

2 Why, when, and how did the Good Practices begin? Gyeonggi Do (a provincial government in the R.O.K) set up the Gyeonggi Women s Development Center in 1997 for training homemakers with vocational programs. In 1999, business development program for women was serviced and this project has been also expanded to electronic-learning focusing on information technologies and entrepreneurial skills. We are still discussing as to how the IT technologies of information society should provide women sith equal chances to social participation. But most scholars seem to agree that information technology can be an important tool to advance women s empowerment and improve women s socio-economic status. Acquiring new skills on information technology have improved the economic status of women by increasing women s ability and assisting women to access global market through e-commerce. Women s involvement in information technology gave the opportunity for shifting from housewives to formal sector workers. The main projects include: Capacity building for professional women in the areas of information technology Women's Start-up Assistance Office for developing her own business Establishment of systems and contents for electronic learning professional education Publishing web magazine & data services for valuable information on women-related issues The project by the Gyeonggi Women's Development Center (GWDC) aims to build the capabilities of women in the emerging information and knowledge-based economy. The center offers IT skills, selfconfidence, and career building education for married women who lack previous work experience, skills, and self-confidence. It also supports women trainees in getting a job or starting their own business and it serves to build an information data base and electronic networks. The Korean government also devoted investments and efforts to develop human resources for the information society and has developed and provide various technologies and education programs. However, the project of Gyeonggi Women s Development Center is unique in terms that this project was specially designed from the beginning and has been implemented in a gender sensitive manner. When the GWDC has sensed the need for women as IT professionals, they addressed the problems and barriers that restrict the access of these women - especially housewives - to training programs. The Center formed a research and planning committee to examine the demands of the workforce in the market. The Center held a public forum to collect opinions while researching statistics and gathering data and information. They sought to objectively collect opinions on the needs of the women and to survey local companies on whether they would employ women who had been trained at the Center. It took a year and a half to allocate the required budget from the local government. Based on this thorough and long-term analysis of the needs of the future labor markets, the Center identified several specific courses on information technology as promising areas for women. IT educational programs were originally designed for women seeking a decent job. To acquire highlevel IT skills, long-term training courses, which run 3 hours a day, 5 days a week for 10 months, were provided for middle-aged married women in Korea. Furthermore, in 1999, the Center started a women s business development program to assist women who are interested in starting her own business in the IT field. The GWDC established six offices that contain computers, Internet access, and other services.

3 The Center has also established an information database on 5,000 agencies including social education, child day care, women s issues experts, female-owned enterprises, voluntary training centers, and women's welfare organizations in Gyeonggi Province. The Center runs its own Internet homepage ( and publishes a monthly web magazine called WoORI (Women's Online Resource & Information) to share information on the database and invite more women to the electronic network. How the support system works for women s empowerment Share of Information Web site Web magazine Online Community for trainees and tenant companies Daycare for women with child Assistance finding employment Access to Education Interview Visiting Telephone Web Diagnosis & Evaluation of Vocational Needs Career information Computer classes Face-to-face counseling Career Development Education Employment Start-up Biz Assessment for IT Trainee Selection Job consciousness and career building training Gender consciousnessraising education Study Session Online Education Projects for women with handicapped, jobs, middle aged housewives, and etc. 1 steps : Establishment of Learning management system 2 steps : Electronic learning & Day Class(Flexible and up-to-date computer and entrepreneurial classes)

4 Women s Development Start ups (annually 20 SMEs) Offices, Computers, Internet Access, Other supporting facilities Financial support for Exhibits Financial support for Consultant services Entrepreneurial Skills : Financing Promoting E-commerce information e- mailing services Independent Mentoring for Start-ups Online community for women entrepreneurs Talk Face to face counseling services Gender specific perspectives Most of our services have been projected with gender-specific perspectives. When the project was launched in 1997, a lack of gender awareness in the staff was also a concern. To improve gender awareness--since half of the staff was male--the Center held workshops for the staff at least once a month and staff were trained to use more respectful names for and have positive attitudes towards the women trainees. Thus, not only the program itself, but the activists, including the staff or the instructors, should be educated in gender-sensitive attitudes and manners. Also, every services are planned to improve women's access to day class. To increase the participation in intensive training program and the ability to concentrate on their courses while managing household affairs and day care, Gyeonggi provincial government has arranged a commuter bus, organized the first class at 10:00. Also, we provide day care for women with children. For middle aged women who are lack of previous work experience and with an interrupted labor market experience, provincial government provides job consciousness and career building training class and face-to-face counseling as a part of the regular course work to boost a sense of professionalism and to plan a career. Through a specific class, concepts such as raising self-esteem, aptitude tests for jobs, planning a career, self-management, image-creation, self-assertion, training to improve creativity, and training communication skills were introduced. Evaluation & Monitoring in every level For quality control, GWDC developed appraisal instruments and requested trainees to evaluate each training class. Monitoring systems are applied to every level including to the trainees themselves, lecturers, those in charge of the education planning department of the outside private sector, and the student representative. Regular monitoring is carried out in every quarter and sometimes meetings are held by the desire of the trainees. Furthermore, through the orientation program for lecturers, the Center provides opportunities to understand the specific barriers women face in today's job market and the need of empowering women in IT professions.

5 To develop women's business effectively, continuous evaluation is essential. management consulting is undertaken by private consultant experts, and GWDC has arranged expert consulting for evaluating their development in every 6 months. development services and facilities are evaluated by the tenant companies once in a year. Every survey results are introduced in planning projects. Organizational supports There are a total 18 regular staffs and about 20 irregular workers at this center. GWDC has organized a Vocational Training Team, a Development Team, an Information & Resources Team, an E- learning Team, and a General Affairs department. Each team is in charge of providing professional training, business development, on-line information, electronic learning management, and other supporting facilities and services to help women learn. And the provincial government guarantees the quality of education by partnership with private sector. Because information technology and skills seem to have a short life span and the trends of future development is unpredictable, building a strong and effective partnership with market-based institutes are required for guaranteeing the graduates with high-skilled professions. In order to respond to labor market, new training courses are selected carefully based on analysis annually. GWDC supports associations among the graduates. On-line community services and other facilities, for example, student s lab and student s lounge are served for their strong bonds. For tenant companies, a monthly meeting, Biz-Talk, encourages women to expand their business exchanges and peer to peer relationships, which help to exchange valuable information and increase the rapport among women entrepreneurs. Results & Lessons Lessons learned from the implementation of the project are that gender perspectives should be strongly considered in every phase and level of the project, from gender analysis, planning, designing, implementation, and monitoring to assessment and paying attention to the effect on women's lives and their conditions in the economy made by legislation, policy, or project. Also, to implement training programs in new technologies effectively, each of human development plans and designs should be carried out on the basis of the needs of the job market and the ever-changing field of new industry. By this, high-level training for women surely contributed to the social and economic empowerment of poorly-skilled women. From September 1997 to December 2005, the training program has produced 1,754 Information technology professionals, of which 705 students (60.0%) have succeeded in getting jobs or starting their own business in the IT field. Female graduates prepared with IT skills can get a decent job in the IT industry, where there is less discrimination against them. The entry of women into highly-skilled occupations has helped to soften the rigid division of gender roles and job segregation in Korean society and has improved women's positions in the labor markets as they are experts. Before they attended the intensive courses, the women who took the classes had been computer-illiterate and had had low self-esteem. After the training, they not only developed high level skills in the IT field, but also gained self-confidence and self-esteem. Begun with six tenant companies in 1999, the Women's Start-up Assistance Office served as an incubator for seventy companies through 2005, out of which twenty-four women s business became independent and are now successful. In 2006, twenty female-owned companies are tenanted in business development programs in the Center. These women entrepreneurs not only earned income but also joined in the new industry as successful leaders.

6 Furthermore, successful businesswomen and women-owned companies themselves play as an important example for girls and women who are seeking for role-models. Therefore, developing women in business management has challenged negative and discriminative business practices of the current maledominated society as well as improving women's status and value, both politically and strategically. For the benefit of the local community, our project will be replicated through establishing local centers in Gyeonggi Province. The first local base center will be partnered with Goyang women s vocational center. We will provide the management skill and electronic learning program, called the women s e- cyber program, and also the know-how to counsel and plan career or business development. Education is one of the key instruments with which to achieve gender equality. As our project launched with studies and researches, study on our projects will always be welcomed. Since the decision-making power is concentrated on the predominance of a male hierarchy, it is extremely difficult for women officers to design, plan or implement gender sensitive approaches and even to gain enough budget to attempt to do so. Therefore, to achieve gender equality at the government level, more women should be positioned as managerial or executive officers. Conclusion Although not listed in this study, various external elements are also very important. To list a few, relationships between a local council and a local government, between a local community and public press, and issues of budgets and performances are critical to leading the Women s Development Center for the empowerment of women. All ideologies, operations, governance, and projects of the organization are based on gender awareness. Goals and objectives to nurture women as a public organization have also been its success factors. I n order to empower women, it is necessary to empower an organization itself and set up a goal to consider sexual awareness based on an objective to serve a role as a womb to socio-economic empowerment of women.