About the project

 

Within "Enhancement of Inclusive Education Strategies in ANHRE member NGOs"  project which funded by IM- Swedish Development Partner. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the development of gender equality, rights based approach and inclusion policies, procedures, systems and programs of ANHRE network. ANHREs' citizenship toolkit is being piloted with specific target groups selected by the members.

 

 

Arab Network for Civic Education - ANHRE adopts inclusiveness and gender mainstreaming in its citizenship toolkit and pilots in at least 15 different contexts in the year of 2017. This comes in line with its new strategic plan 2017- 2020. ANHRE identified 15 participants with various experiences and different background who will contribute to enrich the content of the workshop and develop the toolkit.

 

A piloting workshop about citizenship toolkit focusing on gender and UN mechanism was conducted by Beirut Arab Cooperative Association, in Jordan. The target people were advisors for education, lawyers and activists.  

 

Khalil Abu- Radwan, from Beirut Arab Cooperative Association who is also a lawyer, accomplished a two day piloting workshop in 26/8 and 9/9, where the issues of gender and UN mechanism were addressed during these days. 9 people attended; one was a Syrian , another one was Moroccan and the rest were Jordanians, 3 females and 6 males.

 

"The plan was to only invite Jordanians to the workshops, but then I thought why not having a diversity of people, as the title of the workshop is citizenship which has a lot to do with diversity and respect of differences", Abu- Radwan says.

 

"How can you talk about human rights?"

The United Nation mechanism topic was familiar to all the participants and especially the lawyers who attended the workshop who also contributed with their knowledge to develop ANHRE's toolkit.

 

When the issue of gender was addressed, Abu- Radwan noticed that none of the participants knew what the concept of gender really was. According to Abu- Radwan, most of the participants understood the meaning of gender but through a biological point of view based on sex, therefore the participants were introduced to gender equality and the difference between gender and sex, combining that to gender roles and needs. Since there also was lack of information regarding human rights, the participants discussed the components of the Human Rights Universal declaration. 

 

"How can you talk about human rights, when I don't have my rights here"; it was a quotation by the Moroccan female participant who got divorced after a five year marriage of a Jordanian man .As a Morrocan divorced woman live in Jordan and has to get all her rights especially that she wants to keep her little child with her. Her comment as “there is a contradiction between the human rights system and the harsh reality the women live in.”

 

This woman's story began when she got married to a Jordanian man who didn't treat her well. When they had a child together, things got worse and he abused both his wife and daughter. The woman decided to get a divorce. Afterwards, her x-husband kidnapped their daughter and refused to let her meet her mother. After unsuccessful tries to bring her daughter back by law, the woman felt hopeless and was about to go home country. After the workshop, the attendees of the workshop helped her through a legal process and Abu Radwan, as a lawyer, helped her to get the custody of her daughter considering her bad financial situation.

"Human Rights do not instil in our life, we have to demand them with patience” Abu Radwan proudly added.