Improving digital and entrepreneurial skills of women from rural areas for their economic empowerment and inclusion in the cultural industry

The measure is implemented through several projects aiming to employ and empower women through teaching them entrepreneurial and digital skills that can be applied to growing businesses offering products and services in the field of cultural tradition. - the initiative “employing 1000 women from rural areas” was launched june 2017, under the auspices of zorana mihajlovic, head of the coordination body for gender equality and the vice president of the government of serbia, together with the ethno network and naled. the initiative encourages the employment of 1000 women and young people in rural areas in jobs related to making traditional handicrafts as business and diplomatic gifts. the program was announced to socially responsible companies, institutions, and international organization that can contribute to the economic empowerment of women and young people from rural areas and the preservation of serbia’s heritage by purchasing high-quality handicraft products. its defined goal was providing annually a part-time job for 1000 women and an additional source of income for their families. - the project “empowering south serbian women by forming clusters of old crafts” was carried out in september and october 2017 by the association of business women of serbia, with the support of the german agency for international cooperation and the development agency of serbia. the project activities aimed to boost economic development and solve the issue of unemployed young women in undeveloped south serbian municipalities by encouraging self-employment in the sector of services and tourism. the project encourages preservation of cultural tradition, better quality of manufactured handicrafts and art products, opportunity for participation in national and international market as well as economic empowerment of women in rural and urban areas covered by the project. the project’s end users were existing companies, female proprietors of small and middle-size companies and shops, small and middle-sized firms headed or co-headed by women, and potential women entrepreneurs. in 2018 and 2019, the ministry of trade, tourism and telecommunications issued a public call for programs aiming to improve the level of digital literacy and digital competence of women in rural areas. to empower women from these areas, but also to encourage the development of digital economy and electronic trading, one of the goals that programs needed to accomplish was to increase the use of new technologies and e-services among woman from rural areas. this sort of program aids the digital placement of handicrafts, cultural heritage and creative industries products, as well as the growth of entrepreneurship and digital entrepreneurship in these areas.