The BOSS – Building a Network to Boost Social Secure Europe project aims to tackle poverty and social exclusion through an established quality framework, in which the civil society organisations are already familiar with the needs of their target groups and have an understanding of gender equality issues. EAPN Latvia is leading on this project, with EAPN Cyprus (also representing Socialist Women’s Movement), EAPN Norway, EAPN Romania and EAPN Greece also taking part. Overall, NGOs come from BOSS partner countries.* The BOSS network will involve a direct target group, including project managers, experts, board members and volunteers from all partners countries. To summarise, the BOSS project will be implemented over a 22-month period by ten non-governmental organisations from European countries. Additionally, the project is supported by funding from the Erasmus+ programme.
On 25 May, the opening BOSS conference was held virtually with great success. The overall theme of the Conference was ‘Building a network of Civil Society Organisations that will promote Social Inclusion Strategies: Benefits and Difficulties.’ Speeches were given by the President of the Socialist Women’s Movement (Roula Mavronikola), the President of the Latvian Anti-Poverty Network and Project Manager (Laila Balga), and the Equality Commissioner (Iosifina Antoniou) who was accompanied by Andri Savva, Advisor on gender issues in the Commissioner’s Office.
The objectives of the project are:
1) To establish a cooperation network of European organizations for the promotion of social security and to strategically strengthen the capacity of this Network;
2) To increase the knowledge of BOSS partner organizations’ employees and volunteer leaders about the social inclusion strategies;
3) To ensure the exchange of experience for the BOSS partner organizations’ employees and volunteers on the possibilities of implementing social rights and gender equality.
*Cyprus, Estonia, France, Italy, Latvia (Leader), Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden.