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The school of gender equality

In frames of Belarusian- Swedish cooperation YWCA of Belarus has organized School of Gender Equality  in June 2008 for the teachers of secondary schools from all over the country.  Sixteen teachers from all regions of our country were selected as a result of a competition: 15 women and 1 man. During 1 week they attended a series of seminars-trainings organized in sports center “Staiki” nearby Minsk.

The aim of the School: to train teachers for the future work as trainers-multipliers with high-school students on the issues of gender education in extra-curricular activities. 

The teachers were lectured in following topics:

- importance of real gender equality in modern society;

- notions of “gender”,  “gender stereotypes”, “gender equality”;

-  the essence of gender policy and its implementation in Republic of Belarus; National Action Plans on implementation of gender equality policy;

- gender stereotypes in mass consciousness of Belarusian people;

- specifics of male and female psychology;

- gender aspects of demographic policy;

-  gender aspects of reproductive health; men and women as sexual pertners; gender aspects of HIV/AIDS;

- gender aspects of employment, professional career, unemployment, education;

- women and men in politics; strategies of gender equality implementation;

- gender aspects of violence and trafficking in human beings; prevention of violence against gender groups;

- gender aspects of images in mass media and its influence on education of young people;

- gender socialization of children and adolescents: experience and results of sociological research;

- a man and a woman within a family, responsible parenthood..

Participants learned new methods of group work: Socratic dialogue, photograph analysis, writing gender autobiographies etc. They’ve got a task to elaborate individual modules for further work with high school students on gender issues, which will be a part of new traing manual on gender education for youth.

A photo shooting was organized in frames of the School.

The participants learned about each others work experience and exchanged ideas during the School.