Empowerment: the history and goals of our action
Our project is committed to women in their efforts to construct a society with gender equality, free of male violence, in which all work, paid or unpaid, is done regardless of gender identity, and in which the job of sustaining life (caring) is visible, valued and understood as a collective responsibility.
Surt has been recognized by the Catalan Government with the Plaque to Work President Macià (2023), for our work in favour of equal opportunities in labour world, balance of work, personal and family life and coresponsibility in domestic and care work.
We also received an honourable mention by the Generalitat on Justice in Catalonia Day (2016), for its work in defence of women’s rights and its commitment to the values of equality, inclusion, solidarity and social change.
Our work was also acknowledged by the Catalan Institute of Human Rights with the Solidarity Prize (2009), and the Josep Irla Foundation awarded us the Lluís Companys memorial for collectives (2017).
We work
for women’s
empowerment
We do so by promoting women’s empowerment, autonomy and leadership, with a comprehensive view that takes into account the different dimensions of empowerment.
Mission
Personal empowerment
Facilitating the processes of raising awareness of the conditions of gender subordination and discrimination, to identify their interests and to transform the relationships and structures that perpetuate them.
Generating spaces to reinforce women’s skills as subjects, protagonists and managers of their lives (agency), through strengthening their autonomy, skills and leadership.
Economic empowerment
Working for economic autonomy, by improving their professional profile and opening up pathways to insertion in the formal and/or protected jobs market.
Rolling out support for the creation of social and business entrepreneurship initiatives.
Promoting proposals for the social, supportive and caring economy, incorporating a feminist economic perspective.
Socio-political empowerment
Generating collective thinking to facilitate our understanding and critical knowledge of the socio-political environment in which we act.
Generating ideas, both political and for social action, to identity the causes and the conditions of gender discrimination and exclusion, through affirmation of the rights, the interests, the points of view and the opinions of women and other social groups that are discriminated against.
Communal empowerment
Empowering communities and territories as a strategy for contributing to the exercise of inclusive and participative citizenship, constructed from the perspective of gender equality, and in which people are the agents of their own development.
Promoting the acknowledgement of diversity as the right of everyone to be different, and, from this perspective, facilitating processes of intercultural acceptance and coexistence.
Strengthening the networks of cooperation, collaboration and support rooted in communities.
Vision
To be an organization committed to the efforts of women to construct a society with gender equality, free of all forms of male violence, in which paid or unpaid work is done regardless of gender identity, and in which the job of sustaining life (caring) is a collective responsibility, socially visible and valued.
To be a leading association in the transformative action aimed at eradicating discrimination and the economic, political, social and cultural differences that condition the lives of women for the mere fact of being one.
With active, cooperative and supportive participation and feminist stances, to influence the political, social and cultural processes of change
Values
Gender equality
Our most important value, based on an idea of gender justice as a radically democratic perspective, which, from the acknowledgment of the existence of situations of inequality generated by the social structure, lead us to place the empowerment of women, their autonomy and their leadership at the heart of our action.
Collaboration
The commitment to generate and share knowledge and to maintain relationships based on ethical principles of mutual respect and recognition, aimed at developing people’s potential and promoting collaborative communities that learn from shared experiences, maintaining a practice of continual learning, proactive and flexible, to seek innovative solutions to the social challenges and needs to which we wish to respond.
Diversity
The recognition and appreciation of the forms of diversity (gender, origins, sexual orientation, functional, beliefs) as a right of people to be different, which, consequently, is one of the essential and enriching values of society. It should guarantee their existence and experience without discrimination or prejudices and construct common spaces of dialogue, recognition and interdependence that do not involve the renunciation of being who we are and our values.
Solidarity and social change
The desire to subvert a social system constructed on unsustainable foundations of exploitation and inequality, to move towards an alternative society that, while acknowledging the central role that human needs, emotions and caring must have in any truly transformative project, guarantees for all people a dignified, full and happy life, in which social justice, solidarity and gender equality prevail.
Ethical management
The application of a consistent and rigorous use of knowledge and resources to ensure ethical and supportive social action, which contributes to both improving the people that shape the association, and the people on the receiving end of our programmes and activities, as well as the common good of society.