On October 6-9, the feminist forum "Body and Environment: Feminist Ideas and Practices of Organizing Care, Resistance, and Solidarity" was held.
During four days, together with queer and feminist activists, researchers, and forum participants, Representatives of Women's Fund "Sukhumi" - Nino Korinteli and Linda Chikhladze were involved in a process to created a safe space for the exchange and discussion of interdisciplinary, local, and regional knowledge and experiences.
Together with the WISG team, we also hope that these inspiring days will certainly lay the foundation for new opportunities for thinking, working, and collaborating. Among them, is to continue the forum's tradition of creating and transforming new spaces for queer feminist imagination, knowledge, and practice.
The Thematic Inquiry Group of the Gender Equality Council set up on the Access of Women to Financial Resources held a verbal hearing of the international and local organizations, thematic inquiry experts and civil activists expressing their positions on the issue and answering the questions of the main rapporteur of the inquiry.
Ekaterine Gamakharia – Representative of the Women Fund “Sukhumi” took part in the meeting of thematic inquiry group. In her speech, she focused on displaced and conflict-affected women and emphasized that ensuring women's access to financial resources is not only the most important factor in the country's development, the fight against poverty and violence against women, but it also has a great impact on peace building and restoring trust in the country.
"Today, it is not time for talks, it's for specific actions! Because while we talk about problems and complain, a large number of women are directly confronted with inequality, violence, outdated stereotypes and all the bitterness of economic dependence... Many of them have to fight to survive... Only economically strong women can take care of public welfare, contribute to the development of the country, fight against violence, and build sustainable and long-lasting peace"... - said Ekaterine Gamakharia.
During the meeting, the participants discussed specific ways to overcome the problems and shared their findings and recommendations to each other.
The Permanent Parliamentary Council for Gender Equality and the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee held a working meeting with representatives of international and local non-governmental organizations regarding the implementation of the 9th recommendation out of 12 recommendations of the European Union, which is related to gender equality issues.
The meeting highlighted several key issues in the direction of gender equality: the reaffirmation of the state's commitment to gender equality, the launch of the idea of women's economic empowerment, and the implementation of legislative measures that will be in line with the Istanbul Convention.
In her speech, Eka Gamakharia, head of the Women Fund "Sukhumi" Tbilisi office, emphasized the importance of women's economic empowerment for the prevention of violence against women and effective response. According to the promise of the Permanent Parliamentary Council for Gender Equality, a personal working meeting will be dedicated to the detailed discussion of the mentioned issue.
The Center for Psychosocial Services of the Resource Officer of the Educational Institution informed the representatives of international, professional state and non-governmental organizations operating in Georgia about the results of the activities carried out in the last 6 months and the current projects.
Our representative - Linda Chikhladze also attended the meeting, who shared the experience of working with up to 100 schools of the Women Fund "Sukhumi" in Western Georgia in the field of violence prevention, gender equality and establishment of a tolerant environment. She also expressed personal sympathy for piloting of school mediation and, according to her own experience, focused on the need and timeliness of Peer Mediation in public schools.
The presentation of the new monitoring report “Importance of Behavior Change Programs of the Perpetrator at an Early Stage and Existing Best Practices" organized by the Women Fund "Sukhumi" Tbilisi office was held online through the Zoom platform, and presented by the researcher - Nino Korinteli.
Together with the representatives of state agencies and local organizations, the meeting was attended by representatives of international organizations and public officials of 10 municipalities of Western Georgia.
"Thank you very much for organizing such an important event, where we, the representatives of various agencies, experts, representatives of local governments are given the opportunity to share our experiences, findings, statistics, achievements, challenges to filling out information. similar meetings always create the preconditions for new initiatives, changes and services,” – Indira Robakidze, the head of Tbilisi Crisis Center for Victims of Violence.
The project is implemented with the support of the organization Brot
für die Welt - Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst (Germany)
A meeting of the Inter-Agency Commission of Gender Equality, Violence against Women and Domestic Violence was held by the Interagency Human Rights Council was conducted in a hybrid mode. The session was attended by representatives of relevant agencies of the central government and representatives of international and local civil society organizations. The meeting was chaired by Niko Tatulashvili, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Human Rights.Participants shared the key individual achievements and challenges that accompany the process of working against gender equality, women and domestic violence.
Linda Chikhladze, a representative of the Tbilisi office of the Women Fund "Sukhumi" also participated at the meeting. She shared the experience of the Fund "Sukhumi" with the participants during the discussion and, despite the short time, focused on urgent needs. In particular:The importance of childcare services to promote women's employment and effectively prevent domestic violence;The importance of identifying women / domestic violence at an early stage through the involvement of the Mayor's representatives in the villages. At the same time, she also spoke about increasing their gender sensitivity and the need for vocational training;Barriers to access to municipal services that prevent the affected woman from accessing services in another municipality during a crisis situation due to the absence of victim status and registration; Linda Chikhladze also asked about the current situation of violent behavior correction programs and whether they plan to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs.
The project is implemented with the support of the organization Brot
für die Welt - Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst (Germany)
We present a mini social film prepared by the Women's Fund "Sukhumi" Tbilisi Office, which is based on our monitoring report - “Importance of Behavior Change Programs of the Perpetrator at an Early Stage and Existing Best Practices”.
Monitoring Report is available here
The project is implemented with the support of the organization Brot
für die Welt - Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst (Germany)
Irina, the character of our film, is one of the 13 women who had a friendship with the Women's Fund "Sukhumi" last year.
At our rehabilitation center, women receive human and professional support, new knowledge, practical skills, development prospects in order to continue living independently.
All the actions of the Women's Fund "Sukhumi" are aimed at transforming the victim of violence woman into a strong woman who knows her own and others' rights and knows how to protect her.
The project is implemented with the support the Equality Fund (Canada)
Findings and recommendations in the monitoring report of the Women's Fund "Sukhumi" - "Development of Child Care Services - to Promote Women's Employment and Ensure Effective Prevention and Response to Domestic Violence" were presented to the representative of the State Employment Promotion Agency - Ana Bendeliani by representatives of the Tbilisi office - Nino Korinteli and Linda Chikhladze.
At the meeting, both parties were allowed to share their experiences. Representatives of the Fund "Sukhumi" focused on the specific needs for the employment of vulnerable women, which are discussed in detail in our study, and also talked about the barriers that our beneficiaries face daily.
The project is implemented with the support of the organization Brot
für die Welt - Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst (Germany)
The round table discussions organized by the Women's Fund "Sukhumi" are over. The main goal was to develop municipal services for effective response to issues of gender-based violence - through cross-sectoral cooperation and coordination between the center, the region, and the municipalities.
At this time, the central level was represented by Maka Peradze, Head of the Human Rights Secretariat of the Government of Georgia, and Tamar Tariashvili, Member of the Permanent Parliamentary Council for Gender Equality. Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti Regional Administration was represented by Nana Kakachia, a responsible person for gender issues.
The main part of the meeting was dedicated to the representatives of Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti Municipalities, who shared information on the existing achievements and challenges.
The project is implemented with the support of the organization Brot
für die Welt - Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst (Germany)