The gender issue is a very current matter that we believe has a great influence in all areas of society. There is the influence of gender in publicity, in culture, in politics, etc. The fact is that, most of the time, people are not aware of this influence and cannot understand how it procedes. Our interest is to focus on the influence of gender in conflict transformation, trying to understand how it develops and the impact that it can have.
Even if there is the consciousness that gender is an important factor that needs to be taken in consideration in conflict tranformation (see the following resolutions adopted by the Security Council: Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (2000) and Resolution 1366 on the Role of the Security Council in the Prevention of Armed Conflict (2001)), there is the need to alert organisations that work in the field, discussing the real situations and giving them practical advice. The fact is that sometimes this kind of resolution doesn’t have any real impact on organisations. That’s why we decided to develop this course and to establish contact with people and organisations that are involved in the area of conflict transformation and are interested in knowing more about gender issue application in this field.
The main aim of the training course is to develop gender-sensitive strategies and tools to deal with conflict. This will be reached through group reflection and exchange of good practices. The training course will focus on identifying factors that prevent the active involvement of women in conflict transformation, and developing new gender sensitive approaches.
Objectives
- To raise awareness of participants about gender issue and how it influences society today.
- To identify and understand the factors that determine the lack of participation of women in politics and in conflict transformation.
- To reflect upon the gender stereotypes in nowadays society and how they influence the active participation of women in society in general and in conflict transformation in particular.
- To identify historical and actual examples of the active participation of women in conflict transformation and how it can be useful to the specific conflict situations.
- To help participants acquire skills and competences in dealing with conflict taking in consideration the question of gender.
- To identify ways of dealing with the identified obstacles and factors that complicate or prevent the active participation of women in conflict transformation.
- To build strategies that ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels.
- To learn how to use the conflict transformation strategies in specific contexts of intervention.
- To develop a collaboration network between participants in order to exchange practices and assist each other in future.
