Giving Women a Voice is our joint initiative in partnership with the Leader Women NGO, to increase the participation of women in political and public life in Azerbaijan.
The project is aimed at promoting women’s rights and developing the leadership potential of young women by sharing experience from the UK through a programme of practical skills training.
In July 2002, Leader Women approached us with a request to facilitate a visit to Baku by a group of female public figures from the UK in order to establish fruitful relations with their counterparts in Azerbaijan. This would enable both parties to share their experiences in promoting and representing women’s participation in national life and identify possible opportunities for future collaboration. The visit was to give Azerbaijani women a unique opportunity to learn about the experience and benefits for British women of increased representation in national life, and to draw from UK experience, the actions necessary to equalise gender rights.
Building on this excellent initiative, in March 2003 we organised a visit to Baku by three women from the UK. The visitors were Kate Bennett, Director of the Equal Opportunities Commission in Wales, Christine Chapman, Member of the Welsh Assembly and Mary-Ann Stephenson, Consultant and Trainer in Gender and Democracy. The visit was an opportunity to strengthen contacts and share experiences between Azerbaijani and British women leaders and activists at Women: society and politics conference.
Following this highly successful conference in 2003 , we organised the first phase of the training programme together with Leader Women, the British Embassy and the Active Learning Centre, our UK partner.
Running a successful public campaign, media relations, presentation skills and policy making – these were just a few of the themes covered by the trainers. The first two courses were run from 10 to 16 March 2004, with 40 participants drawn from political and public life across Azerbaijan.
This was followed by Train the Trainer training with 10 participants from 17 to 18 March, who in turn trained a further 200 young women. The programme helps develop a network of trained women activists across Azerbaijan for the future lobbying of women’s rights in public policy-making.
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