FIG Task Force on Under-Represented Groups in Surveying

JOINT COMMISSION WORKING GROUP ON
UNDER-REPRESENTED GROUPS IN SURVEYING

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This Newsletter in -pdf-format

Contents

New Editors of the Newsletter: Eleni Tziortzioti (Greece), Angela Kesiena Etuonovbe (Nigeria), Marie Robidoux (Canada)

Tania Marynowich: Young Lady Canadian Surveyor, first aboriginal woman in Canada to obtain a Canada Lands Surveyor commission

Commission 1 Working Group - Students and Young Professionals - Chair Cecilia Lindén

European Institute for Gender Equality to be set up in Vilnius - Women’s rights/Equal opportunities - 14-12-2006 by Gabriele Dasse

New Editors of the Newsletter: Eleni Tziortzioti (Greece), Angela Kesiena Etuonovbe (Nigeria), Marie Robidoux (Canada)

Gabriele Dasse left the FIG activities after nine successful years, most of them involving with Working Group for Under Representing Groups.

All of us have to give our many thanks to Gabriele, for her excellent work during those years, and ask her to support us for the future.

The responsibility (editing) of the Newsletter is now on the hands of following three ladies:

• Eleni Tziortzioti, Greece
• Angela Kesiena Etuonovbe, Nigeria
• Marie Robidoux, Canada

We appreciate the response of Gabriele Dasse, Pat Morton and Cecilia Lindin. We would like also to ask for the help of the rest of you, for articles, and new ideas.

Eleni Tziortzioti, Greece

Mrs Eleni Tzortzioti graduated from the Faculty of Rural Surveying Engineering, from the Polytechnic School of Aristotle University of Thessalonica in 1990. She currently works as advisor to the Deputy Minister of the Environment. She is a member of EMDYDAS Delegation (Union of the Greek engineers occupied by the Public Sector), and she is a member the Board of the Hellenic Association of Rural & Surveying Engineer (HARSE) for the last 10 years. Since 1997 she corresponds to the FIG activities as representative of HARSE and TCG and since 2001 she is delegate in FIG Commission 7. In her private life she is married to Fotis Dellaportas, a Civil Engineer, and they have a daughter born in 2000.

Angela Kesiena Etuonovbe, Nigeria

Mrs. Angela Kesiena Etuonovbe has a B.Sc.(Hons) degree in Surveying, Geodesy & Photogrammetry from the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus. She is a Registered Surveyor and the first female Surveyor in Private Practice in Delta State, with over fourteen years of experience in the practice of Surveying, Engineering and Mapping. She also has a Masters in Business Administration (MBA). And currently undergoing an Msc. Course in Project Management. Angela resides in Warri, Delta State Nigeria. She is the Principal Consultant, AnGene Surveys and Consultants, a private firm in Warri. She is also a Consultant to the Federal and Delta State Government of Nigeria, and to several Dredging Companies in Nigeria. She is a prolific writer, a Lady of the Knights of Saint Mulumba Nigeria, Member of the Nigerian Institution of Surveyors, the indefatigable Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Institution of Surveyors - Delta State Branch, and the Coordinator, Women – In - Surveying for Edo and Delta States. Over the period, she had successfully executed a research work on ROAD CONSTRUCTION IN NIGERIA – DEFECTS AND SOLUTIONS. And she is currently on a research on lasting SOLUTIONS TO EROSION PROBLEMS IN DELTA STATE NIGERIA. From her school days, she has always been an icon to female Surveying Students and has been championing the course of Gender inequality in the Survey Profession in Nigeria.

She presented two papers “Under Represented Group – Projecting the Image of the Nigeria Female Surveyor” and “Administering Marine Spaces: The Problem of Coastal Erosion In Nigeria – A case study of Forcados South Point, Delta State” at the XXIII International FIG Congress at Holiday Inn, Munich, Germany.

She had authored eight informative, educative exciting and highly spiritual books currently on the Bookshelves. Over 5000 copies of God the Father Loves You Personally have been printed in the past two years and distributed freely to prisons, hospitals, communities, youths, schools and the needy. She is excited at challenges the Survey challenges not an exception.

Marie Robidoux, Canada

Marie Robidoux graduated from Université Laval, Quebec (law); Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Edmonton (survey technology) and Robert Kennedy University, Switzerland (Master of Laws). She received her Canada Lands Surveyor commission in 1993.

Marie resides in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and works in the private sector for Challenger Geomatics Ltd. as Northern and Aboriginal Projects Manager & Land Specialist focusing on aboriginal land management & administration; Traditional Knowledge & GIS; Intellectual Property issues related to geospatial data and mapping; legal surveys; and various land issues related to the resource sector.

She currently is the Vice-President of the Canada Lands Surveyors Association and director of the Canadian Council of Lands Surveyors. She is also a board member of the Canadian Board of Examiners for Professional Surveyors and an examiner.

Tania Marynowich: Young Lady Canadian Surveyor, first aboriginal woman in Canada to obtain a Canada Lands Surveyor commission

Tania Marynowich is a Canada Lands Surveyor (CLS) working for Government Canada in the Canada Centre for Cadastral Management (3CM) in Edmonton, Alberta. She graduated with honours from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in 1998 and began working towards her surveying commission the following year. In 2004, Tania received her surveying commission and license to practice and became the first female aboriginal CLS in Canada.

Tania has been working with 3CM since 1998 and has had a few different job postings over the past 9 years. She started her career in the Cadastral Unit reviewing survey plans and other survey related documentation and advanced to reviewing historical documentation relating to jurisdictional boundaries of Canada Lands. She eventually transferred to the Yellowknife office of 3CM where she was involved with the aboriginal land claim negotiations in the Northwest Territories. In 2003 Tania transferred back the Edmonton office of 3CM where she is now involved in First Nations Land Management.

Through the First Nations Land Management (FNLM) program, 3CM is responsible for preparing land descriptions for the lands that will be under the management and administration of a First Nation. The FNLM program helps a First Nation take over land management responsibilities of their Reserve lands that were previously administered by the Government of Canada.

As a result of working with 3CM, Tania has been lucky enough to have had the opportunity to travel across most of Canada from the Arctic Ocean to Canada’s international boundary with the U.S.A. Tania has worked on projects dealing with jurisdictional boundaries, establishing GPS control on Reserves and National Parks, natural boundary investigations/claims, and the surveying of land claim parcels.

Tania is the chair of the Aboriginal Liaison Committee for the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors and is currently working towards obtaining her Alberta land surveying commission.

Commission 1, Working Group - Students and Young Professionals - Chair Cecilia Lindén

About Working Group 1.4 - Students and Young Professionals

This working group has started in order to highlight difficulties that students and young professionals may face when they enter working life after their studies. FIG is an excellent ground for contacts and it’s a pity that so few students are able to participate at Working Weeks. Therefore there will be meetings organized at Working Weeks with the goal to create a contact point between older and younger surveyors.

The target groups of this working group are Master- and PhD students, young professionals and commission delegates.

Chair Person of this Group is Ms Cecilia Lindén.

Cecilia Lindén
24 years old, Sweden.
Student at the Royal Institute of Technology of Stockholm (2003 -), masters program of Surveying

In Stockholm she has been a board member of the Swedish Association of Chartered Surveyors during two years. She also has been active in the local student organization where she has done one year in the board as responsible for public relations and information. For the FIG WW 2008 in Stockholm she is the students’ representative in the local organizational committee. Thanks to this she was at the WW in Cairo 2005 and in Munich last year. For the future she hopes that this working group can create an exchange between older and younger professionals, but above all help young professionals out to working life.

European Institute for Gender Equality to be set up in Vilnius
Women’s rights/Equal opportunities - 14-12-2006

By Gabriele Dasse

The European Parliament took a step forward to promote equal opportunities between men and women. It adopted a second-reading report, based on an agreement with the Council and the Commission, which will enable the new European Institute for Gender Equality to start work in 2007.

Objectives and location

The Institute's objective is to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality, including gender mainstreaming in all Community policies and the resulting national policies, and the fight against discrimination based on sex, and to raise EU citizens' awareness of gender equality.

It will have a staff of 15 persons in 2007 (30 in 2013) and an annual budget of approximately €7.5 million (proposed budget for the period 2007-2013: €52.5 million). Following a Council decision of 1 December 2006, the Institute will be based in Vilnius (Lithuania).

The co-rapporteurs, Lissy Gröner (PSE, DE) and Amalia Sartori (EPP-ED, IT), welcomed the agreement. It takes into account tasks the Parliament called for in first reading such as to centre the Institutes activities on analysis and makes sure the Institute can be operational as soon as possible and in any event no later than twelve months after the entry into force of the Regulation.

Restricted Management Board

The Parliament in its first reading opted for a restricted Management Board to ensure an effective Institute. The agreement reached ensures a medium sized Board (18 representatives appointed by the Council plus 1 Member appointed by the Commission.

The agreement also takes on board the Parliament's demand to replace the Bureau by an "Experts' Forum" with members from competent bodies specialised in gender equality issues. Its main task will be to support the Director in the planning of the Institute's activities. Finally, the Parliament wants the nomination procedure of the Director to be open and transparent and to involve the Parliament.

REF.: 20061208IPR01264
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/014-1381-345-12-50-902-20061208IPR01264-11-12-2006-2006-false/default_en.htm 

Further information:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/file.jsp?id=5238252