About the project

The Charitable Foundation “Equality and Mutual Respect” implements the project “Women - leaders of changes at local communities”.

The project is aimed at teaching and motivating women to lead and social responsibility at the local level.

The Law of Ukraine “On a voluntary association of communities” from 5.02.2015 launched a process of decentralization reform in Ukraine by empowerment at the local communities. Before the reform there was a well-known trend in Ukraine - the higher the level of the representative body is, the fewer women are represented among its members. For instance, in 2013 in 27 regions, women accounted for 12% in regional councils, 23% in district councils, 51% in village councils and 46% in urban-type settlement councils.

However, as the decentralization reform opened financial opportunities for the local communities, the position of a head of community and other elected members of local authorities became more attractive, than previously. Despite the introduction of 30% gender quota in the electoral lists by the Law of Ukraine “On Local Elections” from 07.14.2015, the first re-elections at local communities indicated a significant growth of interest for male candidates and reduction of women representatives at the local level. This has led to a significant disturbance of gender balance at the level of local councils.

Even taking into account the negative trends that began to emerge from 2015, women are still ready to take active part in the community development, especially in the field of social projects aimed at improving the efficiency of the operation of the entire community. In this regard, support of women's initiatives to develop and implement the latter can help renew balance between men and women representation in government as well as in community life at the local level.

The target group of the project are the following:

women-deputies of regional, district, city and village executive councils;
women-members of regional, district, city and village executive councils;
women-leaders and members of political parties;
women-leaders and members of NGO`s.

The goals of this project are:

to provide women with legal advice regarding their rights and opportunities at local, national and international level;
to increase the level of initiatives and leadership of the target group;
to provide the target group with practical skills in developing and implementing of social projects.

The structure of the project:

The project provides for conducting a series of one-day trainings in 24 regions of Ukraine during June-October 2017, as well as the final conference in Kyiv in November 2017.

Each training will involve 30 participants and consist of 4 sessions:

Public speaking as a means of achieving the goals (theory and practice).
Protection of women rights at local, national and international level.
Techniques of writing and developing social projects. Part 1 (interactive discussion).
Techniques of writing and developing social projects. Part 1 (practice).

Following the session, the participants will be proposed to develop their own social project and present it in Kyiv at the final conference which provide the involvement of up to 100 participants, including around 48 women-representatives from regions, activists in the field of protection and promotion of women rights in Ukraine (politicians, national and international experts), as well as donors who having familiarized with the presented projects, could consider the opportunities for financing the latter.

Project implementation will allow:

to increase women's awareness of their rights and opportunities at local, national and international level;
to increase the level of women`s initiative and leadership by mastering the skills of public speaking;
to motivate women to take part in their own community development by participation in social projects;
to educate participants of the training based on project management in the context of social projects development and implementation at the local level;
to empower women-leaders of local communities to implement their initiatives through presentations of their projects at the final conference in Kyiv in November 2017.