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Education
on Women’s Human Rights
Prepared by the Social Innovation Fund, Lithuania
The Training Programme “Women’s human rights” was developed with the
support of the European
Commission Socrates Programme through the project EUROPEAN NETWORK OF
ADULT EDUCATION
ORGANISATIONS WORKING ON WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT ISSUES No 71248 - CP - 1 -
2000- 1 -
LT- ADULT EDUC-ADU. The project was co-ordinated by the Social
Innovation Fund and included an
international partnership of twelve organisations from nine European
countries Denmark, Sweden,
Iceland, Finland, Spain, The Netherlands, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania.
Introduction The sustainable, democratic development of society cannot be achieved
without genderbalanced
policy taking into account representation, resources and results. Not
very many
countries in Europe can be proud of good results on gender-balance in
different themes and
target groups. According to Euro-Stat information in year 2003, even in the European
Commission, there
are only five women-commissioners (25%), and in the European Parliament,
only 31% of
MEPs are women. The philosophy of equal rights has to foresee not only equal rights and
opportunities, but
also results. Non-discrimination must exist in practice, in our every
day life, not only be
written in legal documents. We can say that society is not sufficiently
prepared to support
equal gender opportunities and especially, results. Even women are not
very active in promoting
gender equality within society. We therefore developed the training
programme “Women’s
human rights”. This course provides women with opportunities to
understand and promote
women’s human rights. It also provides leaders of NGOs, adult educators,
facilitators, trainers
and volunteers with concrete ideas to motivate, engage and encourage
women to actively
promote women’s human rights in their own way, within their own
community. Aim of the course
The central aim of this course is to make women’s human rights education
accessible, usable
and useful for adult educators, facilitators, trainers and volunteers,
who provide non-formal
education activities for women at community level.
The main tasks of this course are:
- to increase women’s capacity to play a full and active role in society
through the
promotion women’s human rights and facilitation of women’s participation
in politics,
the labour market and social life
- to support equal gender opportunities and especially, results
- to provide women with opportunities to understand and promote women’s
human
rights
Target group
- Women
- Leaders of NGOs
- Providers of non-formal education at community level
Content of the course The course is designed on CD-ROM and includes the following lessons:
- Brief contemporary history of women in Europe
• Convention for the elimination of all kinds of discrimination against
women (CEDAW)
- Women and politics
- The rights of EU citizens related to employment
- Sexual harassment in the work place
- Equal pay for equal work
- Breaking free from Gender Stereotyping
The CD-ROM also includes the following additional information:
- “Extra information”, which could help a trainer to prepare lessons, as
well as assisting
trainees with self-study. For example, trainees could read from this
CD-ROM the
text of the Convention for the Elimination of all kinds of
Discrimination against
Women, or to study statistical information about women’s participation
in political
life, etc.
- “Activities”, which consists of twenty-one activities, such as group
work, and case
studies.
- “National Laws”, which includes the texts of national law on Equality
between men
and women, the history of legislation on gender equality and of
ombudsmen offices
in each partner country. This part could be used for organising
self-study with the
CD-ROM, commencing with a trainee studying the document independently,
followed
by a round-table discussion with other learners.
- “Glossary of terms on gender equality”, which is a very helpful tool
assisting with
the common understanding of new terminology on gender equality issues.
- On-line directory of important web sites concerning the course
“Women’s human
rights”. This directory could also be used as a tool for self-study.
Training methods
It is very important to stress, that in spite of the fact that this
CD-ROM was developed for
trainers, a trainee may also use it for self-study, as mentioned above.
The trainer could be
very creative in organising self-study sessions with further discussion
on the material. It is very important to use different adult education methods and new
information technology
in the training process. That is why we have developed a training
strategy for “Women’s
Human Rights” which consists of the three most important stages for each
of the seven
training sessions described in the part “Lessons”:
I. Lecturing
II. Activities
III. Self-study lessons This CD-ROM provides training materials for trainers on how to organise
and run the
course. Our suggestion is to give a lecture on each of the sub-modules
and then to organise
group activities. The self-study sessions will be an additional part of
each sub-module and will
be done together with a tutor, because students will need support on how
to use the CD. Innovation of the course This is a flexible learning course, which includes elements of
class-room-based delivery,
combined with e-learning using the CD-ROM. The course is not intended to
be fixed in
terms of either its content or duration, but is rather based on an
analysis of the knowledge,
experience and needs of the trainees. The most important element is open
discussions on
existing knowledge, which are suggested after each training session.
Implementation of the course in Lithuania The Social Innovation Fund implemented the course in Lithuania. First of
all the training for
trainers was organised through three seminars for the leaders of women’s
NGOs and adult
educators. The CD-ROMs with the training course were distributed to
twelve women’s
NGOs across Lithuania. Secondly, two seminars for twenty unemployed
women in Kaunas
were organised. Some of the women agreed to become the volunteers for
the further
promotion of the training course on self-study. Thirdly, the self-study
process is on going in
the Social Innovation Fund and discussions on women’s human rights are
continuing.
Sources
You can obtain more information about this course by
emailing at: L.Mecajeva@LPF.LT
or by visiting the web site
of the project “European Network of Adult Education
Organizations Working on Women’s Employment Issues”
at the address: www.women-employment.lt.
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