Home › Gender and Leadership

Gender and Leadership

What is the Gender and Leadership Programme ?

The Gender and Leadership programme is an initiative undertaken by the Collective Research and Training for Development in partnership with the Women Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (www.learningpartnership.org), a global partnership of more than 20 independent feminist organizations working worldwide for a vision of egalitarian, participatory, and inclusive leadership.
As part of WLP partnership, CRTD.A is committed to contribute to the creation of a community characterized by tolerance, equality, participation and inclusive democracy through building partnerships based on cooperation, trust, and respect. These partnerships are maintained by having open, ongoing and in-depth communication as well as through the practice of alternative leadership.

Objectives

Leadership skills contribute to enabling women to participate fully in public and political life, shaping processes of social change and inclusive democracy. Hence, Gender and Leadership aims at promoting participatory leadership that values the skills and contributions of every individual and emphasizes the importance of collective action for gender equality and social justice.
Gender and Leadership works collaboratively with WLP to develop training curriculum and implement programs on leadership and empowerment; organizational capacity building; ICT capacity building; as well women's human rights. Gender and Leadership is involved in collective advocacy and networking efforts to ensure that the voices of women are heard.
The main objectives of the Gender and Leadership programme can be summarized as follows:

  • Empower women to take on leadership roles in their families and communities in order to realize their own visions of a better future.
  • Advocate for gender equality, social justice, and women’s equal participation in public and political life.

Target Population:

Gender and Leadership addresses rural women, activists, youth, civil society members, academics, journalists, students, and politicians and women organizations working on empowering women’s leadership skills in an attempt to have increased number of women leaders as well as better qualified leaders.

Selected Activities

Gender and Leadership had held trainings that emphasized a transformational model of leadership built on a participatory and democratic philosophy that values individual skills and contributions. It acted as a lead for advocacy campaigns for gender equity, social justice and women’s equal participation in civil society.
Gender and Leadership carried out its role through the following services:

Contact Us:

Karim Salameh Building Museum Plaza, Behind Volvo Company Beirut, Lebanon Telephone/Fax: 00961-1-611079/612924/616751 Email: getteam@crtda.org.lb

Important Links

  1. Leadership Trainings

    Gender and Leadership held trainings on leadership emphasizing rights to participation and democracy which values the skills and contributions of individuals.
    Gender and Leadership started training in year 2002. It has trained over 500 participants that ranged from rural women, women and men activists, women and men refugees by 2008. Trainings were held in different areas in Lebanon, namely, Beirut, Baalbeck, Mount Lebanon, North Lebanon, South Lebanon in partnership with local communities such as Women’s Rights’ Committee, VTTC (in Palestinian camps), Imam Al-Sader Foundation (South), Arsal Women Center, Municipalities (Baalbeck, Alay, Ghbeiry, Tripoli), Al-Ain Women Cooperative, Mashta Hammoud Women Center, concerned women of the nationality campaign, Lebanese Women’s Affair’s Association and SOS Lebanese Children’s Village.
    The trainings were important since they added to the participants communication, facilitation, advocacy, negotiation, and networking skills, which they went on to apply at the household, workplace, at both societal and national levels.
    In 2005, a pilot Arabic e-course was given in attempt to test the curriculum, technology as well as facilitators’ skills required for running a regular full Arabic leadership e-course. In 2007 (Septemper 3rd till December 15th), 25 participants (of different backgrounds, education and type of work) from six different countries (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria and Egypt) took part in the Arabic e-course.
    Four types of Leadership Training Campaigns are conducted:

    1. Leadership training with refugee women and men: Through this training, young women gradually gained more confidence to speak out their minds, and male participants became more eager to listen to their female colleagues.
    2. Leadership training with rural women: These trainings made women participants to be keen to invest in their daughters and transfer knowledge and confidence gained to them.
    3. Training women for municipal elections: By these trainings, participants became more aware of the possibility of an alternative model of leadership
    4. Leadership training for women involved in the nationality campaign: The purpose was to equip women involved in the campaign with the skills and motivation to work collectively and to improve their communication and advocacy skills.

  2. Regional MEGI1, MEGI2 and MEGI3 Institute (MEGI: Middle East and Gulf Institutes)

    The regional Institutes were held in 2005, 2010 and 2011. They aimed at enabling participants to develop skills in participatory leadership, facilitation, communication, and advocacy, building their capacity as leaders. It brought about some 100 participants from Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Jordan and Lebanon. The participants were practitioners and activist in the fields of community development, human rights and women’s rights.

  3. Leadership Evaluation Workshops

    Leadership and Gender held Leadership Evaluation Workshops are held on a bi-yearly or yearly basis since 2007. They aim at assessing short term (building new skills and capacities), midterm (implementing leadership skills in different environments such as family, work, community) and long-term (changing quality of life…) impact of Leading to Choices training on participants.
    A participatory evaluation methodology as well as an evaluation material are used in these events.

  4. ICT Trainings and Capacity Building Workshops

    ICT training for social change
    Monthly and bi-monthly ICT training for social change are implemented since 2007 with local groups and rural women cooperatives in an effort to support women’s organizational capacity and sustainability as well as their ability to use ICT for advocacy and for improving internal governance and communication.
    “National Institute for Training of Women Trainers in Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) for Social Change” - 2009
    This was the first ICT TOT including women activists and practitioners from Lebanon and Syria. the aim was to support social activism and activism for women’s rights through the use of ICT.

 

Project team

Meet the Gender Equality Team (GET) …
 

Lina Abou-Habib

CRTD.A President of the Board

Dr. Aziza Khalidi

CRTD.A Executive Director

Karima Chebbo

Nationality Campaign Coordinator