I am still supporting the same initiative of gender training as a consultant which I started back in July.
I have trained close to 30 people to become gender trainers. I facilitated six days in total of a workshop on gender, gender mainstreaming and gender based violence so far.
This week it was their turn to practice new skills, and selected people were sent to facilitate gender sessions for senior level government officials for two days. I also went along to provide support. We all got up at 5 and left home by 6:30 to commute to the training venue.
I have to say this was the most defensive and hostile audience. Usually, my target groups are women or people who are interested or already working in women's issues. In this country according to them (mostly men) gender is a "non-issue" or even brings conflict to their family and challenges cultural, religious and traditional values.
Just by pointing some examples of gender issues, it was taken almost as an attack to them. They didn't like that we the facilitators were mostly women, younger, more junior and from NGO and UN backgrounds. We were very diplomatic, but even our well-thought through approach was not enough.
The interpreter who was helping me (since I was the only foreigner there) came up to me and said "the participants has a question to you. Do you know the story of Titanic? They want to know if you know that Japanese man disguised as a woman to try to save himself and get in a boat?"
I thought it was such a strange question and realized it was a personal attack to me. They didn't like Japanese (foreigner) and young looking woman was there to tell them that they have problems.
I didn't know about this man, so I googled and it turned out that he was falsely accused of this. His name was cleared only after he died.
At the training centre, we were treated like VIP. There was a separate hall for us for dining, and someone would wait in front of the bathroom holding a wet towel! Great breakfast and lunch, and they always had snacks for us. Their fried banana was so tasty.
Overall, it was interesting experience, and I am happy to get to experience this whole thing. Leaving TR all day was tough, since M.FR has been away on a field mission. By putting two nannies on shifts, we managed.
I have trained close to 30 people to become gender trainers. I facilitated six days in total of a workshop on gender, gender mainstreaming and gender based violence so far.
This week it was their turn to practice new skills, and selected people were sent to facilitate gender sessions for senior level government officials for two days. I also went along to provide support. We all got up at 5 and left home by 6:30 to commute to the training venue.
I have to say this was the most defensive and hostile audience. Usually, my target groups are women or people who are interested or already working in women's issues. In this country according to them (mostly men) gender is a "non-issue" or even brings conflict to their family and challenges cultural, religious and traditional values.
Just by pointing some examples of gender issues, it was taken almost as an attack to them. They didn't like that we the facilitators were mostly women, younger, more junior and from NGO and UN backgrounds. We were very diplomatic, but even our well-thought through approach was not enough.
The interpreter who was helping me (since I was the only foreigner there) came up to me and said "the participants has a question to you. Do you know the story of Titanic? They want to know if you know that Japanese man disguised as a woman to try to save himself and get in a boat?"
I thought it was such a strange question and realized it was a personal attack to me. They didn't like Japanese (foreigner) and young looking woman was there to tell them that they have problems.
I didn't know about this man, so I googled and it turned out that he was falsely accused of this. His name was cleared only after he died.
At the training centre, we were treated like VIP. There was a separate hall for us for dining, and someone would wait in front of the bathroom holding a wet towel! Great breakfast and lunch, and they always had snacks for us. Their fried banana was so tasty.
Overall, it was interesting experience, and I am happy to get to experience this whole thing. Leaving TR all day was tough, since M.FR has been away on a field mission. By putting two nannies on shifts, we managed.
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