Interview with Anna Fumarola, project manager of Women for Africa Foundation
Published by valentinazoccali
Posted on March 02, 2016
Anna Fumarola is Project Manager of Mujeres por Africa Foundation,
“At the Women For Africa Foundation we focus on research carried out by women. Our program, Science by Women , aims at empower excellent senior African researchers by integrating them into world-class centres in Spain.
Science by Women is an innovative programme because it targets African women researchers as key actors of development and not as merely beneficiaries of aid. It has a holistic approach as it closes the loop by fostering clusters and networks to promote technological and scientific processes owned, supported and led by African women. Through the efforts of these empowered women, not only will technologies developed in laboratories be transferred and adapted to the needs of the general population, but they will also contribute to the breaking down of social and cultural stereotypes limiting women’s access to scientific research.
Research made by women is usually very strongly oriented to tackle real problems and needs of their communities. But they are still scalable to other geographical and social contexts”
About the Author
Valentina Zoccali was born in Reggio Calabria (IT) in 1986. After a Bachelor’s degree in Letters and Philosophy, Valentina Zoccali studied Social Media Marketing and in 2008 she started to work in the fields of communication, advertising and culture. In 2012 she was appointed as Secretary General of S-Com. Besides carrying out tasks related to the management of the association and liaison with EU institutions and EU stakeholders, she has been managing the communication and dissemination of several EU-funded research projects. In 2015 she designed and launched the WISE4ALL (Women for an Innovative Society in Europe ) initiative to promote collaborative and multidisciplinary approaches, aimed at establishing more inclusive social models starting from women participation.