Strengthening working women capacities and networking in the Western Balkans; empowerment of women Workshop in Zlatibor /Serbia, 25-27 April 2012

The ISCOS/CISL in collaboration with ITUC/PERC started the implementation of the activities foreseen the project which was approved by the European Commission (Ref: EUROPEAID/131114/C/ACT/MULTI on Partnership actions-Empowerment of women)

The main project objectives follow the decisions taken by the PERC Women’s Committee as concerns their program and action plan: strengthening the national level trade union women’s committees and networks and their capacity to produce equality plans on national level; to influence state institutions, governments policies and trade union policies; developing expertise and professional analytic skills to identify strategies and develop initiatives; developing and improving strategies and methods regarding empowerment of women’s negotiating skills for collective bargaining and social dialogue; producing materials to raise awareness among wider audience about the need for a more balanced representation of decision making positions; networking and campaigning on identified priority issues for the region ( promoting equal treatment; fighting discrimination) and increase understanding on EU affairs and the accession process.

For the activities foreseen in the project: training workshops in Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and BiH the project team elaborated a draft of the training support materials for the three modules to be developed during the project activities: knowledge on European integration and EU instruments; strategic planning and action plans, campaigning and networking. The training support material will be developed during the workshops with concrete examples and best practices in the region.
The first workshop took place in Zlatibor/Serbia from 25 to 27 April and gathered women trade unionists from different sectors: public administration, mining industry, agriculture, construction, public transport, education. The workshop was chaired by the newly elected president of TUC Nezavisnost, Jasminka Maric, who presented the main priorities of the women’s section, legislative development in Serbia as concerns gender issues and the foreseen activities. The workshop consisted of presentations on the three training modules prepared by the Project Manager Lorenza Lo Sasso/ISCOS, Enisa Salimovic/ITUC-PERC Sarajevo office, project coordinator and ITUC/PERC. The presentations were followed by debates and workshops which brought concrete ideas and action to be developed as concerns more involvement of women in trade union work, fighting against the existing barriers, elaboration of strategic planning and policy documents , campaigning and networking to implement the priorities in the action plan. Special attention has been given to collaboration with other existing networks in the region and the NGOs dealing with gender issues. The evaluation questionnaires have distributed to all participants and the results will be used to improve the quality of trainings and working groups for the next activities.

The next activity of the project will take place in Ohrid/Macedonia end of May.