Kick-off for mentoring for women in the forestry and timber industry - round 2026

The participants were welcomed by Doris Damyanovic, Vice-Rector for Teaching, Continuing Education and Students at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna and project manager. Dagmar Karisch-Gierer, board member of the Forstfrauen association, specialist at the Pichl Forest Training Centre, presented impulses on networks of men and women and invited the participants to the conference as part of WOFO - Women in Forestry International in April 2026. The workshop was led by Heidi Gaube and Eva Janusch from the NOWA association. As part of a quiz, the mentees and mentors learned about figures and data about gender-specific employment relationships, which were consistently (unfortunately rather negatively) surprising.

Mentoring is a building block for advancing equal opportunities. The accompanying program provides the participating mentoring couples with a framework for developing a common target agreement. Part of the program are training courses (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Ossiach Forest Training Center, Traunkirchen Forest Training Center) and workshops for mentees and mentors.

In the kick-off workshop, the participants exchanged their expectations and formulated the prerequisites for a trustworthy framework to achieve their goals together in the next 12 months.

We would like to thank you very much for the intensive exchange and especially thank you to all mentors and mentees for participating in the mentoring program! 
Thank you for the appreciative and good atmosphere at the workshop!
We appreciate your commitment and are very much looking forward to the future exchange and cooperation!