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'Women in Dialogue' - Program will be continued in Mafraq Governorate in 2016
Women from Mafraq ....
Future Pioneers for Empowering Communities (FPEC) has since 2014 been implementing a project “Mediating Dialogue and Conflict Resolution between Syrian Refugees and Hosting Community in Mafraq Governorate” in partnership with Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung (HSS) Office in Jordan. The project aimed at breaking stereotypes between Jordanian and Syrian women to build mutual trust and provide conditions for peaceful coexistence at the same time capacitating the local women to improve their living conditions by acquiring crucial life, social and economic skills.
The project results show clear success in mediating tensions between the two groups and encouraging women for further collaboration. They also indicate local women’s and communities’ dire need and willingness to benefit from more similar programs on a continuous basis. For this purpose FPEC in cooperation with HSS has now developed a new upgraded version of the training program, called “Women in Dialogue” that will aim at developing the local women’s capacity in a more profound, comprehensive and sustainable manner especially by supporting the local women CBOs to take a leading role in providing the local women crucial skills and promoting women’s participation in the community life. Conflict dialogue and women’s empowerment will remain as underlying themes throughout the program thus creating favorable conditions for any further women-led collaboration and activities.
The overall goal of the “Women in Dialogue” program is to strengthen Jordanian and Syrian women in targeted host communities in Mafraq governorate to improve their living conditions and through collaborative approach to have more active role in the community life. The overall title of the program in 2016 is "Freedom of Choice and Action".
To succeed it is also necessary to mediate tensions between Syrian and Jordanian women in targeted host communities by promoting constructive and collaborative dialogue and trust building between the two groups. Women’s local initiatives will be supported that will further enhance Syrian and Jordanian women’s mutual trust and collaboration.
In addition the targeted women will be trained in crucial life, social and economic skills and representatives of local CBOs will be supported through training tools for promoting women’s active citizenship (e.g. Introducing of peer-to-peer learning method to participating women, creating simple framework for its implementation, and training some of the participating women to become peer educators in topics rated as most needed by women themselves).
Overall the program aims at empowering the local women in all five internationally agreed areas of women’s empowerment, which include 1) women's sense of self-worth; 2) women’s right to have and to determine choices; 3) women’s right to have access to opportunities and resources; 4) women’s right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home; and 5) women’s ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order, including in local communities.
Due to the upcoming local elections in Jordan in summer 2016, this year's program will educate the women also about their rights and best practices to promote women’s participation especially in the area of political life and local decision-making. Several interactive seminars and home tasks will be delivered to enhance women’s experience-based learning especially with respect to their attitudes and knowledge regarding women’s role in the community, as well as crucial skills and competences for their promotion.
The topics to be covered during 9 day-long seminars (and in addtition one day for "My Initistive") scattered over a period of one month will include:
- Interpersonal skills
- Conflict dialogue and conflict transformation
- Community culture and community building
- Women’s rights
- Civic education and women’s participation in the political life
- Active citizenship and community action
- Basic life skills
The program for a first group of around 20 women, which will take in the 'Queen Zein Al Sharaf Society' in Mafraq City, started on 1st of February 2016.