Mayor presented to the International Community the District Care System

This Wednesday, from the University of Columbia in the United States, the mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López, spoke about the city and the district care system, a strategy with which the district is generating great impact.

“To reduce gender gaps, women need to have more voice and greater participation, and that is what we are doing from Bogotá with the district care system;Rethinking our social services and infrastructure, to locate women in the center, relieve their unpaid care loads and that they can count on greater opportunities, ”said the mayor of the mayor.

The district president emphasized the political participation approach of women in the capital of Colombia, during the conference the importance of care for the economic and political participation of women in Latin America: the case of Bogotá, organized by the University ofColumbia.

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Major López Unaveils The District Care System to the International Community

Here, a trill in which the mayor, Claudia López, talks about the care system, which she presented at Columbia University:

At the beginning of the talk, Claudia López contextualized attendees on how in the Colombian capital, the pandemic significantly affected two groups that were already vulnerable;Young people and women.

“In fact, the best way to live in socio -economic conditions that have achieved in the last 20 years were eliminated in a year of pandemic, all achievements were erased and that will be difficult to recover it, so that is why we must concentrate on theWelfare of women, ”said the president of the capital of Colombia.

Bogotá has a female population of four million people, of which 3.6 million carry out unpaid care work and 1.2 million are dedicated exclusively to these activities without receiving any payment.

The president of the capitalists highlighted that the District Care System is the Union of Services of the Secretariats that make up the social sector of Bogotá.Is to put the services of the Ministry of Health, Education, Culture, Recreation and Sports;of social and women's integration, at the service and care of women in the capital.

He also explained that the apples of care, central axis of the district care system, try to maximize and adapt for women and people under their care, the spaces and equipment that were already established."They are articulated, the schedules are changed, because it is about caring for the people they take care of, girls, boys, older adults, and also care for them by offering them different services," he explained.

In the panel convened by the School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIPA), Mayor Claudia López explained how Bogotá has responded to the need for political participation of women through the district care system(Sidicu).

He also stressed that one of the great innovations of the district care system, the first system of this type in Latin America, is “to connect women through SIDCU to income generation programs.More educated women, with income, productive and empowered, result in women who can want political involvement and are more prepared to intervene in political scenarios ”.

The event was attended as panelists several experts and academics of the University of Columbia, Yasmine Ergas, director of specialization in gender and public policies;José Antonio Ocampo, Professor of International Affairs;Eugenia McGill, Interim Director of the Concentration of Economic and Political Development of SIPA and as a moderator, María Victoria Murillo, director of the Institute of Latin American Studies.

For the mayor, the district care system is the basis of the city's economic reactivation strategy by promoting women's access to employment and entrepreneurship."We are working on income generation programs for young people and women, through alliances with the private sector, particularly in historically male sectors such as construction and transport," he said.

With this district care system, the Mayor's Office of Bogotá is building a city that puts in the center the needs of caregivers.“Thanks to this 11 months of operation, more than 26 have been carried out.000 Attentions with training and respite services to the caregivers, while simultaneously attending those they care for, ”he said.

He added that “to reduce gender gaps, women need to have more voice and greater participation, and that is what we are doing from Bogotá with the district care system;Rethinking our social services and infrastructure, to locate women in the center, relieve their unpaid care loads and have greater opportunities ”.

During the intervention of the panelists, Yasmine Ergas, congratulated the Mayor Mayor.“Understanding care as a fundamental element of public policy requires a radical imagination.I think it is totally innovative what Bogotá is doing to recognize itself in two cities with different realities and bring the services of the formal to the informal, this is truly redistributive.There are many lessons to learn here, ”he said.

Eugenia McGill, head professor of the SIPA, stressed that one of the most interesting things in the district care system is to know that it is something that is already happening."With initiatives like this, words are passed to action against compliance with sustainable development objectives," he said during his speech.

Among the questions of the public, the attendees investigated the alliance with the private sector and the viability of the district care system, to which the president replied: “Now we have a wonderful alliance with establishments to which women to report if they haveA situation of danger and violence at home.

Now, in terms of sustainability, although we start from scratch and we must make some infrastructure, we are actually using services that already exist and giving them a differential approach, for example, adapting it to the schedules that serve women.So the real question is not, how do we keep it?but rather why we hadn't done it before? ”.

At the end of her speech, the president explained that what the system seeks is a cultural change.“How many of the family's male members will have a real change in habits.That is the real change, how many men from this program will get involved in care work like women.That is the real change, it is a cultural challenge! ”He said.

The president of Los Bogotanos studied finance, government and international relations at the Externado University of Colombia and has a diploma in urban land management at the Erasmo de Róterdam University;She with a master's degree in public administration and urban politics at Columbia University, in New York;and a doctorate in political science from the US Northwestern University.UU.