March 9, 2020
International Women’s Day Workshop March 2020
Sunday 8th March marks International Women’s Day, which has been held every year on 8th March since 1977. To mark the day, the Humanitarian Academy for Development (HAD) held an International Women’s Day Workshop on Friday 6th March, inviting staff to take part in presentations and discussions surrounding women’s issues and women’s rights.
Why is International Women’s Day important?
As the International Women’s Day website states “an equal world is an enabled world.” This is a day for celebrating women’s achievements, raising awareness of women’s issues and taking action for equality, something which is vital in the sector. 2020 marks 25 years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which is one of the reasons why International Women’s Day 2020 is so important – it’s an opportunity to draw attention to the fact that not a single country has achieved gender equality. Read more about why women’s rights are taking centre stage in 2020.
The Workshop
HAD’s International Women’s Day workshop provided a platform for female staff to present concepts and ideas that perhaps staff had previously not thought about. The event consisted of four presentations followed by an open discussion with all staff.
Marketing Support Officer, Hannan Almasyabi, kicked off the workshop with a presentation on Women’s Recognition, looking at human history and where inequalities stem from, as well as what benchmarks are set for women and the history of the feminist movement. Read the accompanying blog and watch the presentation.
Digital Marketing Officer, Romey Watters, then gave a presentation on Women’s Representation in the media. This gave an overview of the different representations we see of women in the media and provided plenty of examples of where the bias and inequalities identified by Hannan, are perpetuated through the media we consume on a daily basis. Read the accompanying blog and watch the presentation.
Women’s Resilience was the next presentation, given by Marketing and Communications Manager, Sonya Sanghera. This presentation looked at what makes a resilient woman and what misconceptions we have about what makes women powerful, as well as providing practical examples of how negative experiences can be channeled into something productive. Read the accompanying blog and watch the presentation.
Our Head of Research and Development, Dr. Jennifer Philippa Eggert gave the final presentation on Women’s Research. This presentation looked at intersectionality, the difference between ‘women’ and ‘gender’ and provided information on what HAD is doing in terms of research regarding gender and women. Watch the presentation here.
This was followed by a thought-provoking, open discussion about the topics discussed and what this all means for HAD and the sector.
“An informative workshop followed by fruitful discussions.” – Reham Al-Eryani, Learning & Development Administrator
Moving Forward
This event provided a great platform for staff discussion and brought gender equality in the workplace to the forefront, raising awareness of the challenges women face in their everyday lives and was a small step in the journey towards gender equality. We are now looking into planning the next internal workshop to further increase engagement with HAD staff and contribute to our capacity building and improving as an organisation.
“This is an excellent way to build an organisational culture of sharing and learning.”
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