Femcities Conferences
Filiz Kutluata and Janitha Reetz Thayaparan,
This article was published in the FemCities Conference Documentation 2011.
The café Secondas was conceived as an exploratory pilot-project. Between 2005 and 2007 the Equality Office in Basel invited young women with foreign roots to come to the monthly Café Secondas. This was not only about drinking coffee. A particular focus of these regular meetings was to encourage the exchange of ideas on a variety of themes. The main objective was to find out about the specific needs of the Secondas and to make use of this knowledge to create a basis for ground-breaking potential projects. Thus, the project not only set itself concrete objectives in regards to the topics addressed (talent management, networking and empowerment of second generation young women), but also encouraged innovative ideas to be developed in the target-group.
These meetings not only lead to important networking contacts and new friendships but also engendered the wish of young women to become active themselves in the future. After the pilot phase, the Secondas created a community of interests and from 2009, with the support of numerous organisations, Café Secondas was able to carry on autonomously and in a new form.
The project is still oriented towards building potential, networking and sharing information. In 2010 it received the integration award of the city of Basel. It has a transregional significance and enjoys international recognition.
Link (in German) to Cafe Secondas:
cafesecondas.ch
