As a part of Fe-Male’s project on “Promoting Women and Youth Political and Civic Participation” and under our partnership with the French Embassy, Fe-Male implemented 6 full days of capacity development training workshops led by electoral, political and gender experts in its centers in 3 regions in Lebanon; Tripoli, Nabatieh, and Beirut. The workshops targeted 47 young women and men who participated with great enthusiasm and expressed the importance of women and youth participation on the civic and political levels.
The first day of each workshop, delivered by LADE, addressed the electoral law from different perspectives and its effect on women’s and youth political participation. The day was mainly divided into three sections beginning with a general introduction to the Parliamentary Electoral Law then going into Youth and Women active political participation and accountability and finally doing a deep dive into Gender Analysis of the electoral law (gaps and challenges).
Dr. Halimeh Kaakour, a gender and political inclusion expert, focused the second day on introducing the concepts of active and inclusive citizenship, democracy and participation of women and youth, and the importance of playing an active role in the upcoming elections 2022. Also, the day included sessions with Fifty Fifty organization, where the content emphasized on developing the youth’s capacities on different topics such as; Women’s political participation in Lebanon in numbers, the Importance of Women Political Participation, Quota in the Electoral Law, Gender issues and Violence against women in politics. The participants also were very interactive and had different ideas and views they wanted to share and understand.
By the end of the trainings, the youth demonstrated high willingness to be more involved in the political activism and expressed their interest in more similar opportunities. According to Nagham, a participant in Beirut workshop, “Political participation is equality in local decision-making processes. One of the obstacles that I face as a woman is political awareness. Attending training workshops to participate in political action provides me with the information I needed to be able to participate more and more effectively in political affairs”.
