Young Women Promoting Peace, Equality and Diversity

The international program focused on young women working with marginalized groups started in 2000 with the financial support of the Levi Strauss Foundation. In its first part, 25 young women received training from 5 countries of Europe on topics such as effective communication, presentation, negotiation, cooperative planning, etc.

In 2003, the first part of the program continued by another 18-month educational program "Young Women Promoting Peace, Equality and Diversity" for 25 young women from Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, and Poland. The program was coordinated by Partners for Democratic Change centers in individual countries.

In April 2003, an international training was given in Bratislava on "Public mobilization and Cooperative advocacy" to all 25 young women. One year later, in April 2004, a conference was held in Prague to evaluate individual program activities and achievements towards program goals. Space was created for individual presentations and a short training on management and leadership.

Program objectives:

• to provide support (technical and small-stipend support) to participants in implementing activities in their communities. Main focus was given to working with marginalized groups (e.g. physically or mentally handicapped, members of ethnic minorities, women and mothers after maternity leaves, refugees, etc.). During the program participants worked together and implemented specific activities (e.g. a specific project or training, organization of seminars, campaigns, providing consultation etc.). It has become clear that young women are able to work both independently and with the help of partner center and a coordinator and implement a number of various activities in their community. The Slovak group organized several. Interesting joint activities: training for a mother center in Humenné in effective communication, team cooperation and personal presentation; training for nonprofit organizations in Humenné and Košice on proposal writing and project management; one-week outdoor camp for young adults from children's homes aimed to develop their life skills; the Day of Nonprofit Organizations and the Day of Volunteers aimed to present nonprofits in Humenné etc,
• to create a network of 25 young women from central and eastern Europe in order to exchange experience and best practices in working with disadvantaged groups. Early in the program, we created an internet group to store reports on activities carried out in individual countries. This group has served not only for mutual sharing of information related to previous activities, but also as inspiration for new ones. After program completion in June 2004 the network has been used only occasionally. Yet, it served its purpose well during the project,
• to make young women more visible as leaders in their communities and to strengthen their self-confidence in this role.

In PDCS the program was coordinated by Monika Straková.