Capacity building of Women in Black Armenia
In August “Society Without Violence” NGO launched “Woman in Black” capacity building in Dilijan, Armenia. The aim of the trainings was to empower young members of Woman in Black to actively participate in peace making processes, to learn and use non-violent and non-aggressive forms of actions. WIB Armenia is a part of world-wide network of women committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to war, militarism and other forms of violence.The training covered interesting topics starting from stress management and self-care to practical skills on how to implement peaceful demonstrations and other forms of peaceful protest. Some of the participants themselves were responsible for some session of the training.They were introduced with the topics of feminism and its history, gender equality, gender based stereotypes, differences between sex and gender, etc. During the training the participants learnt about WIB ideology, goals, values and objectives, about Women in Black movement in Armenia, etc.
They learnt non-violent communication tools, networking skills, project management skills. The participants worked as a group on
“Women of Black in Armenia” movement’s strategic planing, values, goals and objectives.
Beside the learning sessions, the participants had a chance to get to know each other better through warming up parties and movie screening evening. The participants watched a movie “Iron jawed Angels”. They were very touched by the movie that follows political suffragists leaders Paul and Burns as they use peaceful and effective nonviolent strategies, tactics, and dialogues to revolutionize the American feminist movement to grant women the right to vote. After the movie they felt very empowered and inspired by the struggle of women for their political rights.
The participants were quite enthusiastic about the training. We hope that they will put the knowledge and skills obtained during the training into practice during their peace building activities they will be engaged in and will contribute to global peace making processes.
The participants spent a great time and got new friends, new acquaintances, new knowledge, new skills, capabilities and unforgettable memories. Pictures of the event can be found here.
