This initiative focused on creating safe spaces for women’s dialogue and understanding women’s needs.
The main aims for the project were:
- to promote dialogue and discussion that would help change the way the conflict was discussed, both at grass roots and policy levels; and
- to contribute to building an inclusive civil society in the region with strong capacity and motivation for peacebuilding.
The initiative took place before the 2020 war and was funded by the EU’s EPNK3 programme.
Safe spaces for dialogue
Kvinna till Kvinna and their partners provided safe spaces for dialogue, both within and across communities. These took place at both national and regional levels.
These dialogue meetings brought together a range of women’s organisations to exchange experiences and share information about their target groups, their local projects and initiatives and the lessons they had learned from these.
This resulted in more understanding among the groups of conflict dynamics and conflict transformation, and a steady increase in motivation for dialogue across the conflict divide. The dialogue improved confidence in ‘the other side’ as well as mutual understanding of the conflict, its sensitivities and the consequences for women on the different sides. The discussions also helped to build the confidence of women peacebuilders and women human rights defenders from all sides, growing their potential for continuing the dialogue.
The increase in mutual understanding and collaboration helped to strengthen the women’s capacity for joint analysis and messaging. This led to two specific outcomes:
- sharing a methodology on collecting and documenting oral stories with a feminist approach. This fed into Listen To Her, a report on the gendered effects of the conflict over Nagorny Karabakh; and
- a “Memorandum of Trust”, which included mutual agreement on the toponyms to be used when discussing the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, and other issues aimed at sustainable and secure communication.
Peacebuilding
Local partners implemented a series of six mentoring projects and peacebuilding activities. These were targeting mainly at communities affected by conflict, but also included the general public and civil society organisations. The events reached over 1,400 people, mostly women and girls.
In Azerbaijan, all participants were women and most were between the ages of 20 and 40. There was a mix of education levels, but most had completed secondary education. They were evenly split between urban and rural communities.
In Armenia, the profiles of participants were quite similar. The group was around 90% women and 10% men and most of them (around 90%) were between 20 and 40. Most had completed at least secondary education. Around 50% of them lived in rural/border areas.
In Nagorny Karabakh, most participants (up to 90%) were women and more than half were under the age of 30. The majority had at least completed secondary education. Around 70% were from rural areas.
These projects helped empower local communities to engage in peacebuilding activities and to discuss conflict transformation. Some included capacity and skill-building training, with a small grants programme for participants to implement their own sustainable and independent initiatives. This allowed them to respond to the specific needs of their communities, for example providing employment skills for young women.
Kvinna till Kvinna’s partners on the ground have continued to engage new people in their peacebuilding activities.
Photograph by Gulnar Salimova
