Priscila de León, Councillor for Equality at the Island Council of Tenerife: “Start-ups are a strategy against precarious employment”

Priscila de León, Councillor of Equality and Prevention of Gender Violence of the Island Council of Tenerife, describes her role as a distributor of ideas. “Sometimes, when they tell me, what do you do in the Council? I tell them: I am a recipient of good ideas. It is true that many things that come to me, I cannot do, because they are not within my competence, but it is true that everything that has to do with women, later I see myself in the corridors and in the governing council distributing projects, this is for you, this is for you.”

This is the case when she attends to our channel, Impulsa Startups, in a matter that, a priori, would not seem to be within her scope of action. After a tour of state initiatives such as the Spain, Entrepreneurial Nation, where there is talk of breaking the gender gap in the field of start-ups, the conversation is oriented towards new perspectives.

In this sense, Priscila de León highlights the work of making women visible in the field of science. “One of the dates that we celebrate and do various acts and, in a coordinated manner, between modernization and us, is the Day of the Girl and Science. What is done is to contact various schools and institutes on the islands, we go to the Science and Technology Park and activities are carried out at ITER in Granadilla”.

This campaign has also been carried out by educational centres so that they see that these references exist, they ask why they do not study science? or if they want to study science or do, they want to study letters? And then of course, if they knew women who studied science or not, and of course in those meetings with young people you also put references to them.

“We go to high schools and ask ”Did you see the explosion of the volcano? Did you see the volcanologists? Did you see any volcanologist women? The answer is no, even though we have seven women in ITER. That is where we also must play a role of greater visibility of women in any field, but especially in the media. We have carried out several awareness campaigns, especially among girls and young people, to promote the visibility of the role of women, that is, to give girls female references to look at when choosing the careers, they are really going to do“.

It is an objective of the Spanish government to promote vocations in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) careers in women from primary and secondary education to university. To this end, the Executive has announced actions to increase the interest of young women in these degrees, diversify the benchmarks of success and offer specific training to teachers.

For Priscila de León, “yes, it is true that it is a subject in which we have to continue working, in a coordinated manner from the Administrations, because it is necessary, we are saying that instead of advancing in this type of action, we have been Going back, in the past scientific and technological careers were more egalitarian, there were the same number of women as men, but it is true that now the number is less”.

“I believe that it is important to give women the option, that women know, that they recognize it, it is also true that one of the problems that we detect here on the island of Tenerife, within the Tenerife Violeta strategic framework, the framework that governs, all the Equality policies, is the digital divide, so, yes, it is true that we are together with all the entities of the network, trying to find a solution to that problem and taking actions to end the digital divide”, assures the Councillor for Equality of the Tenerife Council.

The perspective of start-ups is necessary in our area because we work on employment, and especially in the employment of women, which is often precarious employment, I believe that the vision of start-ups -with higher quality employment- provides a solution to issue“.

Regarding the role of senior women, supporting initiatives of young women who undertake, “I think it is very important, and it is that, within the lines that we are working on right now, there is the program for older women. The Council is developing a strategy called Conecta Mayores (Connect Seniors) and it is that each area works with the elderly just as it works with equality, transversally, and each area works on its own, which is the elderly population from its perspective”.

“I think it would be very interesting to capture all that talent to know how to take advantage of it, to create a meeting of senior talents, because we have an older population that fortunately is well, physically well and has great value, which is the experience they have acquired. by educated people, who have worked and who have that capacity and that time, because in addition, we realize that our older population feels alone, feels isolated and it is a way of connecting with those young people who do not have that professional or business experience”.