Women’s Human Rights (Training in Law – a Model of Social Technology for Creating Women’s Advocacy Initiatives)

«Femina»’s primary theme is women’s human rights. Women’s legal illiteracy in this country may be regarded as a basis for their lack of rights and resulting acute problems, both social and personal. Therefore the task of legal education for Russian women is of crucial importance. Forms of legal education may vary and target either the public at large or specific groups of population. On the face of it, it is the media that seem to possess the most effective possibilities enabling a vast audience reach. Another approach is promoting women’s initiatives at the grass roots level, which has ardent adherents, prepares local activists, and enhances female involvement in women’s movement. Such women are aware of their rights and, more importantly, know how to assert them.

It is this form of legal education that is reflected in a project launched by «Femina». It involves a 3-stage training based on a specially designed interactive education course. Trainees will be selected by competition from across the Republic of Tatarstan. The three training stages are essentially three consequent phases of any human activity: gaining knowledge – studying a specific problem – taking action to solve it. The trainees will be introduced to legal theory, select a law aspect best suited to their interests or experiences, investigate using available means the situation in their own region, work out and apply a strategy. The projects provides trainees with a scholarship which ensures their accountability and responsibility, while a step-by-step character of the course enables monitoring.

As they work in their regions between sessions, the trainees will involve in their activities their friends, acquaintances, and interested persons. Thus, a few areas in Tatarstan will have their own groups of women activists aware of their rights, possibilities and mechanisms to effectively promote and defend women’s rights. The project concluding event will be a regional conference which will represent locally operating women’s groups and, on the other hand, Russia’s leading experts in women’s human rights. The course materials will be published as a single manual and distributed through the network of the Independent Women’s Forum. The way the trainees will go from a mere wish to somehow improve their own and other people’s life to properly structured advocacy strategies and tactics to be applied locally will become a socially important technology of raising women’s legal awareness and civil activity.

The course is easily reproduced. «Femina» has worked out preliminary arrangements for the 1st stage (legal theory) to be held in a number of Russian cities: Rostov, Volgograd, St.Petersburg. The 2nd and 3rd training stages in these cities will be conducted by local regional women’s centers.

Thus, the project will go beyond Tatarstan, enhancing legal literacy and promoting women’s movement in the Russian provinces. It will enable the creation of new women’s groups whose legal literacy level will increase their influence regionally and will ensure an equal dialogue with local authorities.

The 3-stage legal training and the training-based detailed manual are a means for other Russia’s NGO’s to replicate «Femina»’s experience and vastly extend the female audience reach, thus creating strong prerequisites for providing equal rights and opportunities for men and women. The project is therefore a social technology model to improve legal standards of our society.

The project implementation will be assisted by the Canadian Foundation for Supporting Russian Women.