Gender equality is mainstreamed into, and hence a natural part of, all of our programmes and activities. This means that in planning and executing activities, the gender aspect is always considered and included.
–As a part of our collaboration with partners and our academic cooperation, we undertake and deliver gender training to our partner universities, says Reachnithor Oum, Junior Programme Officer at the Cambodia Office. –We also integrate gender sensitivity into all our activities.
By gender sensitivity, we refer to the process of making lecturers and students aware of how gender plays a role in our treatment of others. It means paying attention to that there are issues related to gender in our society at different levels in all sectors.
–Our trainings are meant to make students and lecturers aware of and more sensitive to gender in the university setting, says Reachnithor Oum. –Another thing we are meticulous with is making sure there is a gender balance when it comes to resources persons working with and delivering our trainings.
The Cambodia team brings in experts on gender, local as well as international, that help shed light on gender issues, in particular to LGBTQIA+.
–The trainers have different backgrounds and perspectives, which is helpful in this context, she explains. –Over the years, we have collected a solid roster of good trainers that we engage in our activities.
The current gender training aims to strengthen gender sensitivity among lecturers, students and administrational staff at the universities working with curricula.
The training seeks to satisfy three learning objectives:
- Provide knowledge
- Address bias
- Raise awareness
One important goal is also to stop a general, relatively widespread negative mindset about LGBTQIA+:
–We want to contribute to changing this mindset.
But there are also challenges:
–However, we do have one challenge, and that is that we currently do not have any text book in Khmer language within the gender context in Cambodia. It is a big topic and it is hard to find relevant materials. Therefore RWI is currently looking into possibilities of how to bridge that gap.
Fact sheet
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Reachnithor Oum
Ms. Reachnithor Oum is a young professional female working to advocate around the issue of youth participation, social inclusion, gender issues, and well-being for seven years including four years and a half of professional experience. She has also been actively involved in public sharing and training on gender, project cycle management, project design, and campaign creation.
Currently, she is a gender focal person and Junior Programme Officer at RWI in Cambodia, located in Phnom Penh. Most likely, she is working with LGBTIQ activity, female students network, human rights academy and English Language Based Bachelor of Law Programscholarship program to the Royal University of Law and Economics. As part of her ultimate goal, she created a gender movement in Cambodia in December 2020 called “Breakthrough Movement”. The Breakthrough movement aims to promote gender equality in Cambodia through storytelling and sharing of experiences. Before joining RWI, She was a project coordinator at the Cambodia Center for Independent Media and a gender focal point for three years under the “Voices for Gender Equality” project funded by EU.
Photo: Sharon-mccutcheon-unsplash