filia.die frauenstiftung

OWEN e.V. (Mobile Academy for Gender Democracy and Peace Research) has been implementing a unique project in the crisis region of the Caucasus since 2006. The Omnibus 1325 project has actually succeeded in bringing participants from all participating and enemy regions of the north and south Caucasus together in a long-term work process.
They have been working together for three years towards a single goal – they want to achieve support for women as actors in peace-building processes at all levels, and above all co-determination of women. This is also formulated in UN Resolution 1325 that was adopted in the year 2000 – an important milestone for feminist peace work.
Trainers (including some male trainers) have been trained in cross-national courses for gender and peace work. In the meantime ideas developed in the training sessions have led to many concrete initiatives and projects being realised in the field. For instance an informal pan-Caucasian "International Network for Peace Education" was formed. New NGOs have been established, for example in Beslan (where the terrible hostage drama occurred in 2004) the youth organisation "Time" (Wjemja), and in Baku, Azerbaijan, a peace organisation "Dialogue for peace" to promote understanding between Azerbaijan und Armenia. In autumn 2009 seminars led by mixed teams will be held at four different locations in the Caucasus region. Here too the issue is peace work and creation of awareness for gender issues. To find out more go to www.omnibus1325.de, where you will also find Russian and German issues of the newsletter "Reiseroute Friedensstiftung" (Bus Route Peacebuilding) that all participants drew up together.
What has been learned from this process? What experience can be passed on? Participants from Latin America were included in a joint workshop "Gender in peacebuilding" attended by 45 peace and human rights activists from the Caucasus and Germany. In October 2008 the perspectives of the south, the east and the west were brought together in Lenzen (Brandenburg), a relatively rare and unusual opportunity.
"Taking part in the Trialogue was a challenge. I was full of expectations right from the outset when I received the invitation. What would these women be like?" writes Julieth Tamayo from the Casa Cultural Tejiendo Sororidades Group in Cali, Colombia.
Challenges were presented by the diversity in the age range of participants – from 30 to over 60 – and in their cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Terms such as "power", "feminism", "suppression" and "gender" were understood in very different ways by the participants against the background of their differing traditions and experiences.
The activists from the Caucasus live in small, isolated post-Soviet societies and undertake high personal risks with their peace work. The activists from Latin America have experienced dictatorship and violence, but are shouldered by emancipatory social movements. The German participants seek alternatives to Eurocentric aspects, to primacy of western interpretation. The difficulties they display in identifying with their nationality is alien to the Caucasians. In workshops the participants were able to get to know the peace education work of other groups and, for example, to work together on themes such as "images of women and men in the media", "gender and education", "tolerance – reconciliation and power".
The learning process was mutual, as Julieth Tamayo describes. "At the beginning I felt a little frustrated because of the language barrier. But then I began to feel real communication with the women from the Caucasus. We shared the pain of war – expulsion, the losses of our childhood, of our beloved, of our non-realised dreams. We shared our fears and our yearnings. I found common signs of what we women did and do vis-à-vis war. We proceed from our bodies, our wishes and our love to create alternatives, in each of our peoples. We women work from the base, starting from daily life in our communities. I would like to discuss how strategic designs can develop from the everyday scenarios of work for peace. After all, we women should be playing in the top leagues too."
filia supported the Caucasian participants by assuming travel and accommodation costs for their stay in Germany.

www.owen-berlin.de

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