Gender Working group has been established in 2005 and since then has been committed to discussing gender in context of Eastern Europe. We are a group of diverse green activists from all over EE passionate about feminism, gender equality and LGBT+ rights.
In the working group we have several topical priorities which define our objectives:
– Combating discrimination
– Gender Equality
– LGBT+ rights
However, we work on wide range of related topics: feminism, education, sex education&health, advocacy and making queer and feminist theories and discussions accessible to all people. We are passionate about creating a network of people committed to these ideas and aim to create a safe space for gender activists, feminists, queer people and young greens who wish to engage and learn within this framework.
Why do we exist?
We are aware of existence of many gender related issues – from discrimination, violence, lack of responsibility of official institutions and actors etc; we are hoping to mobilize activists to combat these harmful narratives and raise visibility of oppressed groups in order to create safer communities and take a step towards solidarity, peace, social justice and inclusion.
How do we work?
We meet online once a month, to discuss relevant news, activities and ideas; learn and educate one another on gender topics, local policies, regulations and situations; as well as to discuss ways and methods of reaching our objectives. Additionally, we organize internal team building evenings and game nights once a month to ensure fun, cozy and safe atmosphere of like minded activists.
Our activities take up different forms and shapes, from social media campaigns and statements, webinars and online trainings, to international projects and local actions. Together with this, we are taking a strategic approach to creating an international network of organizations in order to collaborate and create sustainable and impact-full actions towards reaching our goals.
Become a member:
Application procedure consists of filling out the online application form which will be reviewed by current members. Positive review is followed by an onboarding Q/A meeting and finally attendance of regular meetings.
Cooperation and Development Network Eastern Europe is happy to announce the third step of the annual work plan “Cities for all – inclusive Urban planning and decision making in the Eastern European cities”. The call for local actions is an opportunity for the youth organisations or group of young people that participated in the previous stages of the project to submit the applications consisting of the Local Action Plans and Budget.
The 3rd part of the project, “Cities for all-now” aims to contribute to the improving of the Urban infrastructure for Women and LGBT+ people in the cities of Eastern Europe and raise awareness on inclusive urban planning, by providing the the youth with an opportunity to practice their gained experience in the home cities.
We would like to achieve this by meeting the following objectives:
To support the participants of the previous phases and their organisations in creating a space on the local level for young people wishing to tackle urbanization and gender;
To ensure the transfer of the gained knowledge and skills between the participants of the previous two phases and their organizations and communities;
Address the local authorities, organizations and other stakeholders working on Urban planning in order to affect the local decision making.
The Green European Foundation with the support of Cooperation and Development Network Eastern Europe is announcing a call for Participants for the international training “Cities for All – How?”. The training will take place between 25th and 31st of July in Serbia. 24th of July and 1st of August are the arrival and departure dates for the participants.
To develop the participants’ skills of creative and efficient campaigning for spreading the message to the wider public;
Create a space to explore the new tools and strategies, adapted to the struggles of young LGBT+ individuals and women in the cities, for lobbying the demands to the different stakeholders;
Equipping the participants with the skills of working with the local communities and organising outreach activities on the local level, that encourage young people’s active mobilisation around the topic of Cities for all.
The Green European Foundation with the support of Cooperation and Development Network Eastern Europe is announcing a call for Prep-Team members for the international training “Cities for All – How?”. The seminar will take place between 26th and 31st of July in Croatia.
To develop the participants’ skills of creative and efficient campaigning for spreading the message to the wider public;
Create a space to explore the new tools and strategies, adapted to the struggles of young LGBT+ individuals and women in the cities, for lobbying the demands to the different stakeholders;
Equipping the participants with the skills of working with the local communities and organising outreach activities on the local level, that encourage young people’s active mobilisation around the topic of Cities for all.
All Working Groups (WGs) of CDN are looking out for new members, which is why they decided to publish a joint call for new membership. At the moment there is one regional WG – RUMB, and three topical ones: Gender, Digital [X] and Alternative Urbanisation. They differ from one another in topics they discuss and work on, but what binds them all is a common Green vision of working towards a more inclusive, democratic, just and sustainable Eastern Europe. Bellow, you can read short descriptions of Working Groups, just to get acquainted with each of them 🙂
We are a group of diverse green activists from all over EE passionate about feminism, gender equality and LGBT+ rights. In the working group we have several topical priorities which define our objectives:
Combating discrimination
Gender Equality
LGBT+ rights
However, we work on wide range of related topics: feminism, education, sex education&health, advocacy and making queer and feminist theories and discussions accessible to all people. We are passionate about creating a network of people committed to these ideas and aim to create a safe space for gender activists, feminists, queer people and young greens who wish to engage and learn within this framework.
Do you want to be a part of or initiate activities for a better and free internet? Come and join us! At digital [x] we care about an open, diverse, and privacy-respecting online world. We’re also big fans of open source software and believe that human culture should be accessible to everyone. Anyone is welcome, and no technical knowledge is required. Whether you just want to discuss with like-minded people, start a campaign, organise a seminar, digital [x] is happy to welcome you.
The Group serves as a platform for young people to discuss fair and innovative solutions for cities in Eastern Europe, through discussions, movies’ discussions, international projects and online campaigns. Through its activities and endeavours the Working Group aims to advocate for sustainable and just development of urban areas to voice the existing issues of accessibility, gender inequality and overall betterment of societies, particularly of Eastern Europe.
RUMB stands for Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus working together on common problems and common solutions in this region. Currently, our working group consists of young people from the RUMB region with different backgrounds: students, lawyers, engineers, education workers, etc. But the will to participate in Green activism and thirst for changes are something we have in common. Therefore we are ready to apply our skills and knowledge to empower youth in our countries and make a first step for a better fair reality for all, despite the actual situation appears as it is.
For more information about the Working Groups check out the Working Groups pages on CDN’s website!
The Green European Foundation with the support of Cooperation and Development Network Eastern Europe is announcing a call for Participants for the online course “Cities for all: why?”.
This online course is phase one of the Annual Work Plan of CDN, “Cities for all: Inclusive urban planning and decision making in the Eastern European cities”. The online course will be taking place on online learning platform of the Green European Foundationduring May 2021. Aside from interactive educational content on the platform, you will have opportunity to learn, have fun and meet new people on weekly meetings, webinars with experts and workshops. Zoom meetings will happen on Mondays (at 18:00 CET), Wednesdays (at 18:00 CET) and Saturdays (at 12:00 CET). All webinars will be recorded and sent to the participants of the OC. All participants will receive a workbook on their residence address in which they will track online course progress and other tasks.
The course attendants will be encouraged to continue their learning in the scope of project through the second phase of the Work Plan, which will take place in Croatia in July 2021 (depending on COVID situation) and involvement in both events is a precondition for applying for Local Actions sub-grant that will take place in September 2021.
Online course “Cities for all: why?” will aim to understand how patriarchy shapes our cities, urban infrastructure and lives of urban youth and has the following objectives:
Provide the participants with the theoretical knowledge on how the cities are affecting the lives of young people of different genders and sexualities.
Create an inter-cultural safe space for young women and LGBT+ people to share their struggles and stimulate the discussion on the values, principles and the directions about the future of inclusive cities.
Empower the participants with the tools and analytical skills for identifying the local challenges of their communities in regards of gender inclusive city planning.
Cooperation and Development Network Eastern Europe and Gender and Alternative Urbanisation Working Groups are announcing a call for Prep-Team members for the international Online Course “Cities for All – Why?”. The OC will take place between 1st and 31st of May in Online – on Green European Foundation learning platform and Zoom.
To provide the participants with the theoretical knowledge on how the cities are affecting the lives of young people of different genders and sexualities.
To create an inter-cultural safe space for young women and LGBT+ people to share their struggles and stimulate the discussion on the values, principles and the directions about the future of inclusive cities.
Empower the participants with the tools and analytical skills for identifying the local challenges of their communities in regards of inclusive city planning.
Urbanism and Gender are strongly related topics and should be looked at together. In many Eastern European countries, bad city planning is failing young women and LGBT+ youth. Basic safety is a top concern for women and queer people in public spaces, public toilets are often insecure for us , the streets around suburban areas do not have enough street lightning, side walks are very narrow or do not exist at all. This causes discomfort for the pedestrians and often is not safe, the number of properly functioning public toilets are very low and are strictly divided into 2, which is another concern for gender queer people. All these put young women and queer individuals under big risk of facing different types of violence, including sexual. As a result, young LGBT+ individuals and women feel insecure to leave their houses when it gets dark. Additionally, women and queer people even in the city center can be followed and face verbal abuse. Around suburban areas of the city such cases are even more extreme – in some countries, women who are seen in public in late hours can be stigmatised. All the above mentioned issues are closely tied with the class, religious and ethnic background, education and other social aspects.
This is why CDN and its Alternative Urbanisation and Gender Working Groups are organising a Work Plan that aims to empower the young activists from the Eastern Europe to reach out and influence the local authorities through advocacy for improving urban infrastructure for all.
We will do this by reaching these objectives:
First, train young activists from the Eastern Europe to understand how patriarchy shapes urban infrastructure and cities through equipping them with the tools and skills to explore the connection between our habitat and Gender.
Second, to develop skills of campaigning and advocacy among young activists to shape more inclusive, LGBT+ friendly and safe cities for everyone.
Third, to enable participants with an opportunity to practice their skills and share the gained knowledge further on the local level through communicating with authorities and expressing their demands regarding public spaces and inclusive infrastructure.
Cooperation and Development Network Eastern Europe and Gender Working Group are announcing a call for Participants for the international seminar “Art as Shelter”. The seminar will take place between 7th – 11th April in Tirana, Albania ( 6 and 12 are travel dates to and from Albania for the participants).
The project is the first phase of our annual work plan “Art for the Young, the Queer, the Feminists of Eastern Europe”and is going to focus on how to contribute to the creation of inclusive and sensitive political environment by understanding power dynamics in patriarchal society and by empowering young women, transgender, non-binary, agender, gender queer and intersex people and broaden safe space and claim more private and political space through art.
This way we would like empower the participants with tools to broaden safe space and claim more private and political space through non-formal education and art. In particular, we would like:
To build understanding of patriarchy as a dominant power that operates in the society and feminism as a theory and strategy to challenge dominant power relations;
To create an intercultural safe space for young women, transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, agender and intersex people to share their private and political struggles and to explore tools to counteract them;
To use art to empower young women, transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, agender and intersex people to stand up against patriarchy and broaden the safe space by giving visibility to women* through art.
One of the fields that CDN, as a capacity building network, prioritises to tackle in the Central and Eastern Europe is gender: gender roles, patriarchy, sexism, women emancipation, LGBTQ+ rights, queer theory, these are some topics on which gender working group aims to raise awareness and empower the youth on. The importance of Gender issues are especially vital in the Central and Eastern Europe. Gender working group has been active for almost a decade now and this project is an idea of the members.
The Central and Eastern Europe is still very conservative and patriarchal compared to Western Europe. According to the data of countries that make their data available through Eurostat, the worst domestic violence and femicide situations across Europe is Montenegro, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bosnia and Croatia. Countries like Serbia, Ukraine, Poland, Turkey or Caucasus countries are not included in the data set but it is a very well know fact, that the situation is not any better in those countries. The public and private spaces are not safe for women. Looking at the political representation, only 6 of the 52 leadership positions in Eastern Europe are occupied by female leaders as of 2019. The progress towards gender equality is so slow that even Council of Europe only recently adopted guidelines to its 47 member states on tackling sexism, including the first internationally-agreed definition. Looking at the LGBT+ rights, members of the LGBT+ community in Eastern Europe don’t have safe public spaces to express their gender and sexual orientation openly. The Gay Pride is mostly banned in Eastern European countries and where it is not banned, it can only take place under heavy security, limiting the LGBT+ access to political spaces as well.
What will we do and why?
This project has the goal of tackling the gender issue and representation in private and political spaces in Eastern Europe from both female and LGBT+ perspectives. However, with this project we would like to firstly enlarge the local, closed safe spaces with young activists of different genders and sexualities from the Central and Eastern Europe. Through international youth activities we will provide a bigger, intercultural space for young people of various genders and sexualities to interact with each other, share struggles and learn from each other. In the last phase of the work plan, we will carry the safe space to public space. We will enable the activists to interact with wider public through using art as a communication tool.
Our AIM with this workplan is to to understand power dynamics in patriarchal and cis-heteronormative societies in order to empower young women, LGBT+ youth, transgender, non-binary, agender, gender queer and intersex people to broaden the safe space and claim more private and political space through non-formal education and art.
By providing the platform to discuss the shared experiences and counteracting strategies, we would like to:
Build understanding in the group about the different ways in which power can operate in society and reflect on possible unaware perpetuation of the existing power relations;
Create safe space for young Eastern European women, LGBT+ youth, transgender, non-binary, agender, gender queer and intersex activists where they share experiences of daily private and political struggles from different contexts;
Consider different strategies for challenging dominant power relations and equip them with tools and techniques to vigorously stand up in their respective struggles;
Explore using art as a tool to expand the safe space in providing visibility to young women, LGBT+ youth, transgender, non-binary, agender, gender queer and intersex people;
Explore and establish cooperation with the initiatives / organizations / individual activists on international level dealing with the same issues locally.
Project summary
This project consists of three activities, with which we would like to stress the importance of art, inclusivity and human rights. The project target group are the young people from the Central and Eastern Europe (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo*, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine).
1st phase – Art as a shelter: A room of our own
The first event of the Work plan is a 5 day international training aiming to understand power dynamics and how power operates in patriarchal societies in order to empower young women to broaden safe space and claim more private and political space through art.
Date: 7-11 April 2020, (6th arrival, 12th departure)
The phase two is an organic continuation of the phase one and draws attention at challenging cis- and heteronormativity as a dominant power and aims at engaging and mobilising LGBT+ young people in taking ownership in advocating for their rights in their national contexts; We want to contribute to overcoming the binary understanding of gender and sexuality and maintstream this discourse in the (Green) youth organisations.
Date: 30 June – 4 July 2020, (29th arrival, 5th departure). Duration: 5 full working days
Location: Istanbul, Turkey
Call for Prepteam
Call for Participants
UPDATE:
1st + 2nd Stage – Online course“Art for the Young, the Queer, the Feminists of Eastern Europe”
Due to COVID-19 pandemic, first two international activities “Art as a shelter: A room of our own” and “The Good, the Bad, the Queer” are moved to online space. Online course “Art for the Young, the Queer, the Feminists of Eastern Europe” aims to understand power dynamics in patriarchal and cis-heteronormative societies in order to empower young women, LGBT+ youth, transgender, non-binary, agender, gender queer and intersex people to broaden the safe space and claim more private and political space through non-formal education and art.
Date: 10 October – 28 November 2020.
Duration: 8 weeks, 4-6 hours per week
Location: Online
3rd phase – Art for freedom: Free Yourself and the Rest will Follow
The final phase which comprises of Local Actions in the project countries, that will be partially developed during the previous phase aims to broaden the closed safe spaces of young women, trans-persons, non-binaries and LGBT+ community by visibilising their identities and the struggles to wider public using non-formal methods (i.e. art) as a communication channel in order to challenge the normativity in the society.
Date: December/January 2021
Duration: Optional
Location: Participating countries
Call for local actions
Methodology
The program will be based on the principles of non-formal education and intercultural learning. We strive for active, inclusive and direct communication and transfer and sharing of knowledge. Sessions will be balanced between theoretical inputs, training, workshops, discussions, reflection, planning, brainstorming and other interactive methods of learning.
This project is organised by the Green European Foundation with the support of Cooperation and Development Network Eastern Europe, with the financial support of the European Parliament to the Green European Foundation, and supported by the European Youth Foundation of Council of Europe.
*All references to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.
