Political School for Women

Based in Cali in Colombia, the School aims to teach and empower women to engage in the political process.

Description

The political school for women is built around a four-part syllabus, outlined below, which is the best introduction to and description of its work. The core content is adapted to fit the needs of each group of students bearing in mind their socio-political, economic, and cultural backgrounds.

First component - Dialogue of Knowledge:

This section is about knowledge and recognition. It is about learning from women in areas related to the school’s objectives. It is also about teaching acceptance and celebrating diversity.

Second component - Basic Learning:

A core component offered to all participants, it provides teaching in the following areas:

• Gender, diversity, conflict, ethnicity, and feminism;
• Exercises in abstract thought;
• The body and identity;
• Communication skills;
• Women’s human rights; and
• The incorporation of diverse views and a gender perspective into daily life.

Third component - Specialisation:

At this stage in the syllabus, the participants choose an area of specialisation and emphasis on which to focus, this can be:

• The communication and sharing of socialising experiences;
• The practice and exercise of representative politics; or
• Resistance and the development of alternative symbolic constructs (these can be demonstrations, role-plays, theatre productions, or other public and group-based gestures and acts).

Fourth component - Political Influence and Collective Action:

Dialogue with reality is a key part of the core philosophy of the school: the school is constructed from the exchanges, the dialogue, the field trips, and the participative observation which the students engage in. Following from this idea, the fourth component grows out of the development of the others, both cutting across and drawing from the other three. It comprises the study of collective action and politically influential activities observed throughout the whole syllabus.

Aims / Objectives

The school has five general principles from which it draws six more specific aims.

General principles:

• The promotion of non-violence and peaceful methods of conflict resolution;
• The respect for ethnic, class, and ideological diversity;
• The incorporation of a sense of sorority and other elements of feminine culture into women’s political development;
• To mix practice and theory at all stages of education and to adopt inclusive and participative methods; and
• To bring pleasure into academic work by incorporating conceptual approaches and vivacious teaching methods.

Specific aims:

• To strengthen female citizenship and women’s participation in political leadership;
• To favour innovative political proposals from feminist perspectives;
• To help in the development of women seeking to apply to decision-making positions so that they are more efficient and better able to introduce new gender-based assessments;
• To develop the appropriate tools to allow gender perspectives to be built into every woman’s daily life;
• To promote women’s empowerment; and
• To assist in the articulation and construction of links, alliances, and strategies inside women’s movements and with other social and political groups at local, national, regional, and global levels.

How it is Articulated

The school offers both formal and informal teaching. It provides the opportunity to gain a qualification (Diploma), and also runs workshops, seminars, and forums in which women can participate, or simply attend. All these processes are put together to keep in mind and to reflect the national and regional situation.

The school also runs a permanent collective which is an educational production company called “Image and Memory”, which has produced several documentaries and cards for the schools campaigns.

Achievements / Learning Points

The school offers three qualifications (Diplomas), taking 120 hours each, to classes of twelve women. The teaching centres around: political rights and duties; the study of the Colombian constitution through a gender perspective; the history of female emancipation; and the study of the political organisation of the Colombian state.

The success of this teaching has led to the school becoming recognised in women’s movements and academia as an arena of excellent political tuition in gender studies, feminism and non-violence, with an innovative educational approach based on the feminist motto “the personal is political”. In addition to this, the school has become nationally and internationally recognised as a good institution working for peaceful social practices.

The experience of setting up and running the school has led to a number of learning points:

• It is important to reach an equilibrium between the level of information given by women, the confidence they seek, and their recognition in terms of political progress;
• In teaching women, it is important to develop and use techniques that recognise and appreciate the different responsibilities, roles, opportunities, and limitations of women in social and political contexts;
• It is necessary to use methods which accept the importance of women’s bodies in relation to women’s studies: the women must be empowered so that their self-esteem is increased to the point where they are able to remove themselves from being sexualised when participating in politics or other public activities; and
• Interaction with audiovisual resources – especially video and photography – is of great importance as it promotes consciousness and generates sensitivity towards the issues.

Funding Resources

Kellogg Foundation

Organisations Involved

• Theatre “La Máscara”;
• Cultural House “Tejiendo Sororidades”;
• Fundación Mavi;
• Fundación Paz y Bien;
• Cultural House “El Chontaduro”;
• Fundación Sí Mujer; and
• Grupo Amplio de Mujeres y Mujeres Independientes.