Source: Foroyaa News
Women from five West African countries converged at the Paradise Suites Hotel from 24 to 28th March 2014 to receive training on leadership skills. The five day training of the women activists from diverse walks of life was organised with the support of Women's Empowerment And Leadership Development For Democratisation (WELDD) and Women Living Under Muslim laws (WLUML) in collaboration with GAMCOTRAP .

Dr. IsatouTouray said it is expected that the WELDD programme will enable WLUML to be able to build the leadership capacity of women for advocating, mobilising and negotiating for: women's rights; participation in political and public arenas; citizenship, pluralism; resisting culturally justified violence against women; peace and security; and increasing women's access to and control over economic resources.

"As we all assemble here today, I am optimistic that we will gain the required skills and capacity to improve on our leadership skills and further improve on our advocacy such as enhancing capacity for: analysis of key factors, allies and opponents; documentation as evidence for advocacy, accountability from duty bearers and public opinion mobilisation; monitoring political trends in countries for threats and opportunities; undertaking legal advocacy, including applications using judicial processes and technical skills for negotiations, advocacy and leadership," she said.

She stated that looking at the current development landscape and observing the current global crisis calls for rethinking and constructive engagement of women as active players rather than observers.

"This workshop will explore a broad conceptual and practical understanding of feminist leadership, by locating it within the current context of 'political change', where there is opportunity to increase women's political participation," she stated.

Dr.Touray said the workshop aims to explore feminist definitions of leadership; leadership qualities, traits and skills; and how feminist leadership can be sustained. The training looked at women's agency in their current contexts to explore how women can act as agents of change to see the realization of their rights. Participants were introduced to the idea of feminism both globally and locally, and how solidarity can have a striking and significant impact.

She stated that the primary objective of the workshop is for them to gain knowledge and understanding of their rights; increase their understanding of leadership, in particular feminist leadership, and how to link feminist activities to this; increase their understanding of what political participation is, and what political processes exist and impact on them; to learn to make alliances with other political forces around particular issues (ie. Creating a front); raise their awareness of the larger networks available nationally and internationally; facilitate greater linkages/networking between one another and an exchange of their own personal narratives; provide strategies to address issues related to confidence, self-esteem, self-care and feelings of empowerment and finally learning to identify and address gaps in their activist advocacy work and where they need to be capacity built.

• Gambia