The Academy Staff Trained on Gender Mainstreaming

(Hargeisa, Somaliland, July 28, 2010) All of Academy's staff members including senior management participated in a 4-day training workshop on gender mainstreaming at Ambassador Hotel starting from 21st - 25th of July, 2010.

Organized and facilitated by Interpeace's Gender Mainstream focal point, the main objectives of the workshop were the creation of a gender-sensitive working environment through improved understanding of key gender related concepts and terminologies and through the acquisition of appropriate gender analysis framework, tools and approaches to enhance women's concrete and proactive role in development process.

	Photo of the Academy's staff in the training session.		Sacdiya Abdiqadir Mohamed, Workshop Facilitator explaining the workshop content.		The Academy's Director of Communication & Culture Dept, Mustafe Anwar Awad actively participating a group-work actitivity.

Suad Ibrahim, the Academy's senior researcher presenting group-work activity.		The Academy's executive director speaking at the closing day.		Group photo of all the Academy's staff that attended the workshop.

Also part of the objective of the workshop was the introduction of Gender Audit, a technique and skill to follow-up the progress of gender mainstreaming, into the Academy's overall operational framework.

During the 4-day training, the Academy's staff acquired a great deal of knowledge relating to the historical and contemporary underpinnings of women's movement and gender development. Through a series of gender analysis steps and frameworks, the Academy's staff gained an in-depth awareness of the correlation of gender, culture and socialization.

The staff actively engaged in a number of group-work activities that enabled them to draw critical thoughts from their diverse and rich personal and professional experiences. The staff also proposed practical solutions to the problems and challenges faced among efforts to implement projects and initiatives that place great emphasis on gender equality/equity at various levels-national, organizational and community. The cultural and socialization practices that are either barriers to or promote peace from gender perspective were among the issues that stimulated a heated and constructive debate.

"From a gender perspective, there are many cultural practices that are barrier to peace," said Ms. Ifrah Mohamed Abdi while presenting her group-work. Among them, she noted the exclusion of women from the decision-making tables at all levels, negative portrayals of gender roles in Somali literature as well as extreme examples such as rape and revenge killings.

Speaking at the conclusion day of the workshop, Mr. Mohamed Saed Gees, the Academy's Executive Director, said "I grasped a great deal of knowledge on gender and gender-related issues from this workshop."

"I hope the workshop has had a similar impact on the perspective of other staff members at the institution who I'm sure they also benefited a lot from this opportunity," he added.

While gender mainstreaming has always been an approach utilized by the Academy in its programming, it was officially launched as in-service initiative in 2008.

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