Rosemary Butler AM for Newport, Deputy Speaker, has confirmed that she will represent UK/Wales at the Wo/Men in Politics South Caucasus Regional  workshop in Tbilisi. The workshop will be held on 14-15 November 2008 and she will speak about gender in politics, share Wales’s experience in achieving gender balance at the National Assembly for Wales and facilitate discussions during the workshop.

Purpose
The main purpose of the workshop will be to build a network of politically active women accross South Caucasus to exchange positive experiences and together come up with new ideas on improving the current situation of relatively underrepresented female leadership.

The Workshop
This workshop will cover the common challenges around South Caucasus for women in politics – campaigning and elections, working with the media and building a public profile, cooperation/competition with male politicians.

The Participants
The participants of the project are women representing 10 leading political parties (5 parliamentary and 5 non-parliamentary), therefore a mix of pro-government, centrist and opposition parties. At different stages of the project, women and men MPs will also be invited to interact with the participants and also gain or improve various political skills addressed by our events. We are also actively involving the media in the project, both as direct participants for some components, like gender-sensitization trainings and awards, as well as supporting participants at the events involving women politicians.