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.
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