Final Evaluation Report
SRP304: Supporting Women's Participation in Local Governance in Eastern Ghouta
Planned Output: The first objective of this activity was to provide Sham Legal Center for Statistics and Documentation with financial assistance to cover the costs of training for 50 female activists and outreach to community members, with the planned outputs of two workshops for 50 women conducted over a period of three months (45 days per session) and three awareness campaigns conducted.
Based on the grantee’s photos, the grantee final report, and the site visit reports, this output was achieved.
Since the beginning of the revolution in Syria, women have played an important role in the political movement. However, women in the war area are consistently kept away fromdecision making processes. Therefore, SRP decided to cooperate with Sham Legal Center for Statistics and Documentation to provide financial assistance to give workshops and training on program management, business development, and human rights affairs for 50 female activists. For this activity, SRP provided funding for trainers, power generators to illuminate the training venue, stationery, banners and flyers. Each workshop targeted 20-25 women (for a total of 40-50 women trained over the course of the activity) who are active in civil society organizations in Eastern Ghouta, or who have proved certain leadership and management skills. According to the grantee’s milestone 2 report,the targeted people had different backgrounds such as widows, mothers, and women looking for work.In order to get attention from the public, the grantee conducted advertised the workshop through posters all over Dumaand distributed some materials in the places where women are gathering,such as schools, according to milestone-3 and milestone-4 reports.Based on the grantee’s reports, they held two workshops, with 23 participants at one of the workshops and 27 participants at the other. While the grantee provided detailed reports with specific numbers of attendees at various sessions, site visit documentation only confirms a smaller number of attendees. As described below, it seems to have been difficult for the full group of women to attend all sessions, so although a total of 50 women attended at least one session, it’s likely that a smaller number of them attended all sessions of a workshop.
It is worth mentioning that according to the grantee (milestone-4) report and FPA First Site Visit Report,although first days of workshop suffered from hard conditions because of the cold weather and intensive shelling, more than 20 trainees participated in the first session.In addition, the final report says that the first hall prepared for the training was hit by war airplanes which forced them to change the hall. The grantee highlighted the situation also in the milestone-2 report, stating that the training programme was delayed for one week because of the security situation in Duma. One of the most important challenges was that the grantee had difficulty to communicate with the participants because of a lack of communication means.According to the 4th and 5thsite visit report,the exam periodalso affected the participation since most of the trainees are working as teachers. Finally, according to the 3rd Site Visit FPA Notes, since in the last two lectures the lecturer was absent for personal reasons, participation went from 24 to 10 (according to FPA 5th visit report).According to the grantee (Milestone-4) report, despite the all of these difficulties, four sessions were successfully held during the reporting period and for each session there were more than 20 participants.
The firstSite Visit Report shows that all planned subjects were discussed during the workshop and participants were happy and satisfied.Ms Bayan, head of women’s office in Sham Law Center, said that although the workshop was endedtrainees kept coming and participation was very good. It was mentioned in the grantee final report that sessions were appreciated by the trainees, especially since the benefit was great on both the personal and practical levels for the trainees.More importantly, a request was sent to Sham Law Center to hold the same trainings in more areas in Eastern Ghouta. Lastly, in order to see the concrete results of the training, the participants were asked to draft projects depending on what they learnt through the sessions and the trainees came with different ideas such as opening a branch of a vocational institute in chemicals in Saqbaa(for high school graduates) and a management plan for the educational center.
Apart from training and workshops, the center conducted threeawareness-rising campaigns.These campaigns, which included seminars and distribution of outreach materials such as brochures, highlighted the importance of taking care about the future of their children and the necessity of educating them; women’s role in society and the need for activation of women; and the importance of civil documentation in preserving rights, especially marriage and birth certificates.According to the grantee’s reports, the participants in the awareness campaign seminars stressed that ‘’because of our circumstances today, women could be the most vulnerable in society.’’ What is more, the grantee noted that women that participated in trainings questioned why their role has been marginalized, even though they were an essential element before the revolution and a key instigator at the beginning of it. Therefore, we can conclude that SRP304 created an opportunity for women to address one of their major needs in the society.
This activity was mentioned in an article inTamadon, a Syrian political and cultural magazine, which interviewed the head of the Women Office at Duma LC, Hiba Al Rahman. She mentioned that the LC, in cooperation with Sham Center, implemented a joint project for empowering women and building their capacities in the institutional and administrative areas.
Planned Outcome:The second objective of the activity was to facilitate mechanisms for women in Eastern Ghouta to participate in governance processes, with the planned outcome of at least six women seconded to the Duma Local Council.
Based on the grantee’s photos, the grantee final report, and the site visit reports, this outcomewas achieved.
In collaboration with the grantee, the local council in Duma facilitated the work of six female trainees in the local council office, helping and supporting them to do their jobs and to design their own activities.In order to achieve this goal the Local Council announced job vacancies for females and also printed outreach materials mentioning that the Local Council would support any activity proposed by the female trainees or females from the community, to help them with drafting a work plan and also to identify a possible donor for those plans, according to milestone-5 report. At the beginning, according to the milestone-5 report, the work was not easy for the women, since it was their first time working in these types of positions. However their performance was good and the trainer mentioned that ‘’this [activity] was unique since female participants are working in different fields….Results were excellent, one participant was supported to start an institute to teach chemistry to students who cannot study anything after high school since the area is under siege.’’ During the interviews, two participants said that they need more workshops like this one, proving that they found the training useful. At the end of the training,according to the milestone-3 report, the Local Council chose participants to work for the Local Council based onlevel of educational qualification, type of educational qualification, previous experience good attendance in theprogramme, interaction and noticeable progress during the training programme, and passing programme tests.
After the completion of the activity, the grantee informed SRP thatthree female trainees were admitted as regular employees in the local council, two in the women’s office and one in the land titling office. The ones working in the women’s office are responsible for launching the office and preparing special projects for women to promote female community members and support their role.The grantee is working with the council to hire another three trainees and the council is very cooperative, but these vacancies will take some time because of the ability of the council to hire additional staff and the council’s view of the need for the additional employees.
After the activity ended, the grantee reported that, inspired by SRP304, the Duma LC launched the first women conference in Duma, in which more than 11 CSOs participated. The conference which took place on January 31st, 2015 and aimed to create a space to discuss and explore the different mechanisms of developing feminist actors, initiatives and action in the society as well as reactivating women’s role in this critical time. It also served as a tool for networking between the most active organizations in Eastern Ghouta in general, and in Duma in particular. One of the most important results of this conference is that it reflected women’s awareness regarding their participation in the emerging political and governance structures. One of the recommendations that resulted from the conference, participants explicitly called for women to be represented in the General Assembly of Eastern Ghouta (recently formed as to be the main political decision making entity in Eastern Ghouta).
Best Practices/Lessons Learned:
• Since the grantee was afraid of the shelling and they had previous experience with this type of situation, the grantee asked SRP to remove the social media links as part of deliverables. For another previous activity the grantee shared details on social media and the regime shelled the areas identified in social media as the places where the activity was taking place. Ther