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PARWAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Afghan leaders of the Parwan province met with the Republic of Korea Provincial Reconstruction Team and members of the Women’s Empowerment Team, Kentucky Agribusiness Development Team III, for a gender equality awareness conference at the ROK Charikaar Base, Afghanistan, May 10.
Attendees learned what the international community considers gender inequality and how important the issue is in other countries, said Dr. Hyunjoo Song, a gender adviser for the ROK PRT.
The segregation of the two sexes, of men and women, is very normal in Afghan society, she continued, but Afghans don’t really know that international communities consider the segregation of men and women to be discrimination.
“The training should not take place in one (session), it should take place continuously with the same audience, because it is not easy to change the people’s attitudes,” said Song.
Education has three components: acquiring skills, transferring the knowledge and changing attitudes. Among the three components, changing people’s attitudes is the most difficult, according to Song.
“The gender seminar is to change their attitudes,” said Song. “That’s why we have to have the capacity building seminars with the same audience.”
Coalition forces held a similar conference Dec. 14, 2010, in Charikar Division where Song spoke to more than 30 participants including attorneys and the mayor about gender awareness.
“The conference was a good experience and I learned a lot,” said Mohammad Taher, a deputy director for economics in Parwan Province, through an interpreter. “All of the issues she talked about she is right. Mainly in villages, there is a lot of (discrimination) going on, but big cities are better at respecting women more because they are better educated.”
Carmen Tamras, a female linguist with the Parwan PRT from San Jose, Calif., said when they go to the villages to talk to the people, many men will not allow her to talk to the women.
“The men think that since we are westerners that we are going to try to teach their wife inappropriate things, so they don’t want them anywhere near us,” she explained. “But when we talk to them and say I am a mother, I am a daughter, or a sister, or a wife, or whatever, show them some pictures of our family, show them that I work really hard and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need to be so they can look at us like a human being just like them ... then they can let us in.”
Because talking to the women of the villages can be difficult the Kentucky ADT III takes a different approach.
“We make sure we tie ourselves to the female leadership,” said U.S. Army Capt. Carla Getchell of Frankfort, Ky., the Kentucky ADT III women’s empowerment coordinator.
At the operational level the Kentucky ADT ties female leadership such as the director of women’s affairs, in with important meetings. They also teach the same kinds of things their male counterparts are teaching to ensure men and women are educated equally on finding resources for their projects.
Like the previous counterparts, Getchell and her team plan to be involved in projects to help Afghan women earn an income through agriculture. Past projects taught widowed and low-income Afghan women how to raise poultry and bee-keeping.
“The goal, when setting up the poultry or bee keeping projects, is that coalition forces don’t do the training. What we do is assist the local leadership, the female leadership, in resourcing the training,” explained Getchell. “They provide the location, and we help them find resources for the training. We are the facilitators in connecting the Afghan (women) with resources available throughout the country.”
Song supports the work of the Kentucky ADT III.
“When the women start to make money on their own it empowers them because they will be less dependent on other people,” said Song. “It will definitely change their attitudes and change their husbands’. It could change the power structure in the household, it is not common, but it could change.”
Combining the work of the PRT and the Kentucky ADT’s women’s programs, Afghan women may be able to start seeing progress in gender equality, said Getchell.
“I think one of biggest goals of (these gender awareness conferences) is just getting all of the women in the same room so that they are talking,” said Getchell. “Networking is huge, and for us, in order to get them to a successful level, they have to know who they can call. Once (they) know the right people to talk to, it’s much easier to get (their) job done. We want the line directors to be able to talk to the different leaders they have in their areas so that they can start solving their own problems when they occur.”
Song said she intends to keep working on spreading gender awareness.
“I’d wanted to have gender conferences on a regular basis, like every month (after December’s conference), but due to the limited mobility and transportation, I couldn’t keep the seminars going,” said Song. “If the conditions allow it, I will keep the seminars on a regular basis ....
“In ‘sha Alla,” she said, meaning, “If God wills it.”
| Date Taken: | 05.12.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 05.11.2011 15:51 |
| Story ID: | 70227 |
| Location: | PARWAN PROVINCE, AF |
| Web Views: | 92 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, ROK PRT, Ky ADT promote gender equality, by MSG Ashlee J.L. Sherrill, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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