After the popular protest movement began in March 2011, Syrian women played an essential role as civil society activists by participating in peaceful demonstrations, building civil society organizations, delivering humanitarian assistance, as well as participating in negotiations with conflicting parties. They also took part in the organization of services in local communities, in addition to many other activities. Recognizing the importance of women’s participation in building a promising future for Syria, we founded the Women for the Future of Syria program, designed to activate women’s leadership role. Women for the Future of Syria was launch in 2012.
This program has multifaceted approaches to issues facing Syria in general, and women in particular. Through the program, we reach women’s organizations, as well as individual women leaders to develop their capacity to assume leadership positions at the social, political and economic levels, and to allow them to be effectively involved in the Syrian transition process.
Strategic Goals
We attempt to achieve gender equality and we work to eliminate all forms of gender discrimination, abolish all discriminatory laws against women, and put an end to all forms of violence against women and girls.
We strive to ensure equal opportunities for women, socially and economically.
We also seek to empower women politically. Our goal is to enable women to assume leadership positions at all levels, including participation in local and national governance institutions and the political transition.
Strategies
We build the capacity of women through specialized training workshops on women’s issues, negotiations, mobilization, advocacy, and strategic planning as well as the tools they need to play a greater role in society.
We mobilize women and conduct advocacy, linking women leaders and community actors together to build relationships and organize advocacy groups in every community. Furthermore, we are working to promote women’s participation in the negotiation process and political transition as well as to mainstream gender concepts in these two processes.
We produce research papers on the problems facing women in local communities and we produce results that support their causes.
We provide small grants as well as support to women’s initiatives to increase their effectiveness and emphasize their role in local communities.
Through the Women for the Future of Syria program, more than 2,500 women have been trained on topics such as Negotiation, Mobilization, Advocacy and Strategic Planning. In addition, we have published a number of research papers on women’s issues and the importance of their effective participation.
The ‘I Am She’ network was launched in 2014.