By Teresa Sebastian
Caritas India organised an in house training on gender mainstreaming for Community Mobilisation team in Kerala Social Service Forum, Kottayam from 28-30 January 2008.
The main object of this workshop was to build up shared and common understanding on gender mainstreaming in the context of SOA II phase among the team members. This self-exploratory workshop was a collective search and of introspection, to look at Caritas level – position on gender mainstreaming, where Caritas India is and how this organisation is going to move and to look at the larger commitment towards society and how is it going to place itself in the broader context.
There were input sessions on gender, gender mainstreaming, gender division of labour, patriarchy, gender analysis, gender policy, practical and strategic gender needs and gender mainstreaming – it’s goal, need, process, principle, pre-requisite, strategies and indicators. Subsequently team had analysed community mobilisation programme - its goal, objective, strategies and activities & community situation with gender lens and the constraints and opportunities at CMT level and partner level to push the agenda – gender mainstreaming.
Further the team had defined the role of CMT in the context of gender mainstreaming, delineated the responsibilities of team members, sketch out a realistic road map for implementation and found out expected outcome and indicators.
Team members expressed that it was an opportunity for them to have more clarity on gender mainstreaming and CMT’s role, to review project from different angles and appreciated the determined effort to build consensus on gender mainstreaming among team members.
It is suggested that common understanding on gender should be widened, to have more input on the practical side of gender mainstreaming, to prepare guide for members at different levels and to integrate road map with common road map of CMT.
Ms. Beulah, Gender consultant for Tamil Nadu facilitated and all CMT members and Mr. Gerard Meier (Caritas International team leader) participated in the workshop.