In January 2019, WLP’s partner in Kazakhstan, Shymkent Women’s Resource Center (SWRC), hosted a workshop on leadership and women’s political participation. SWRC hosted the event in partnership with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The three-day training included activists from around the country as well as from Georgia. Together they discussed ethical politics, explored negotiation techniques, and enhanced their skills in coalition building and networking in advance of Kazakhstan’s elections in 2020.
6
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The percentage of senate seats held by women in Kazakhstan’s parliament. Civil society organizations like WLP Kazakhstan/SWRC are working to change this. Source.
This is the sixteenth such event to be held in Central Asia since 2014. To date, more than 350 experienced activists have taken part in these advanced training institutes organized by WLP partners in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Afterwards, they have gone on to implement over 65 step-down trainings, where they share the knowledge and skills they gained with local women and men in their communities.
View photos from the workshop below, and click here to browse some of the WLP resources they used for this training.
Workshop participants are chosen based on their experience and dedication to
advancing gender equality and promoting women’s leadership.
A group of women politicians work on their presentation.
This International Day of the Girl, WLP had the honor of speaking with Zala Ahmad, advisor to WLP's Cross Border Coalitions Initiative and co-founder of Safe Path Prosperity (SPP), an incredible organization dedicated to empowering Afghan women and girls through menstrual health education and access to essential products. Operated by Afghan women, SPP produces Safepad, a locally-made reusable sanitary product, in production centers located in Kabul and Kandahar. The organization is dedicated to creating pathways to employment, prosperity, and dignity for Afghan women and girls through various initiatives, including employment opportunities, mental health support, and educational awareness programs. To date, SPP has generated over 100 jobs and distributed more than 250,000 hygiene kits to women and girls across Afghanistan. In this interview, we delve into the work of Safe Path Prosperity and the organization's vision for women's empowerment in Afghanistan. Read more about the inspirational work of SPP below.
WLP’s partner in Morocco, the Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (ADFM), has been leading an intergenerational movement to reform Morocco’s Family Code, the Moudawana, since 1985. We sat down with ADFM board member Asmae Aboulfaraj, a young feminist activist dedicated to advocating for reforms in the parts of the Moudawana that fall short of the country's constitutional commitments to gender equality. In this interview, Asmae shares her vision for collaboration between activists and civil-society organizations in Morocco and what she thinks the next generation of leaders can do to advocate for a better future for both women and men.
