Women Empowerment Programme for Sustainable Peace and Good Governance

This initiative enables Nepali women to take on the role of community mediators. It has established a Gender Resource Centre and provided training, workshops and seminars to support local women's learning of rights and to build their capacity to be involved in the peace process.

Description

This women-led programme has been designed to empower women on social, economic, cultural and political rights and to make them capable of intervening in the peace process both at the local and the national levels. It provides resource materials on peace and conflict through its resource centre for those involved in peace activities.

Furthermore the programme has been working to enable women (through training, workshops, seminars, formal and informal knowledge-sharing) to play greater roles as community mediators and community workers for peace activities.

Aims / Objectives

The initiative aims to develop women leadership. In order to involve women in Nepal's peace process first of all it is necessary to develop the capacity of women in peacebuilding and leadership. It also provides the necessary training and resources to support women's capacity building in conflict transformation and peacebuilding.

How it is Articulated

The programme provides women with training on human rights, women's rights, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. It has also provided leadership training for women.

To enable women to play the role of community mediators, local women have been empowered and encouraged to participate in the peacebuilding process. As part of this initiative, Jagaran Nepal has established a Gender Resource Centre with the aim of providing resource materials on the subjects of women's rights, good governance and peacebuilding. The centre has been trying to establish relationships with human rights and women's rights groups at the national, regional and international levels to coordinate women's rights and peace activities and to develop appropriate initiatives in the future.

Achievements / Learning Points

Jagaran Nepal has established a Gender Resource Centre for human rights, gender and conflict transformation to provide reading materials on subjects like women's rights, good governance and conflict transformation and peacebuilding in order to develop human resources in these fields. The gender resource centre has many books, articles, reports and training materials in these fields. Many conflict-affected women, including those from the grassroots level, have used and benefited from the gender resource centre.

Through this programme, Jagaran Nepal has also published a training manual on "Women's Rights, Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding" and a gender analysis book. The organisation has learnt that considerable numbers of women have been victimised in the conflict and have subsequently been excluded from the peace process. Women have to be capable of getting involved effectively in the peace process in the future. Therefore, the capacity of women has to be developed to intervene and to play an effective role in the peace process.

Geographical Area of Operation

Some districts of the Eastern, Central and Far-Western Regions of Nepal.

Funding Resources

• Canadian Cooperation Organisation (CCO);
• United Nations Development Program, Nepal – Support for Peace and Development Initiatives (UNDP-SPDI); and
• Global Fund for Women.

Organisations Involved

Local groups formed in Dolakha and Kavrepalanchowk districts at the initiation of Jagaran Nepal.

Stories

Jagaran Nepal has a good example of successful mediation by local women to solve local problems:

Jagaran Nepal formed a group of conflict-affected women in Kabre district. When the time came to hand over the fund from Jagaran Nepal to the women group, some members of the Maoists came and demanded money and threatened them away from launching the programme (generally Maoists do not want the existence of other organisations / institutions in their dominated areas). The women's group and the members of the Maoists had an intense meeting - in fact the negotiations lasted four hours in all. Finally, the problem was settled and the women's group convinced the Maoist that the programme would simply help the conflict-affected people, including children.