Partners, in cooperation with its Centers in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia and with Civic Initiatives in Serbia conducted the “Young Women Promoting Peace, Equality, and Diversity” program from January 1, 2003 through June 30, 2004. Twenty-five young women, who work with a variety of marginalized groups in their communities such as Roma, people with disabilities, refugees, unemployed women, and orphans, participated in the program. The program was extremely successful, benefiting over 2,000 people directly through 88 activities that gave them new skills, new services, new networks, and increased opportunities.

The twenty-five young women participants took part in a number of regional and national activities, including two regional trainings. The first training took place in Slovakia in April 2003 on the topic of cooperative advocacy. The second training took place in the Czech Republic in April 2004 on the topic of leadership and also included sessions on sharing lessons learned from the program. In between the two trainings, the participants worked as national teams to implement a series of trainings and activities to benefit disadvantaged groups in their home communities. Following each activity, each participant shared her work with all the other participants in the program through a common email list serve, thus facilitating a lively exchange of ideas and lessons among the multinational group. The following are seven examples of activities implemented by the participants. The program was funded by the Levi Strauss Foundation and the Open Society Fund-Serbia.

Please click on the following names for more in-depth case studies on the impact of the program and photos of the participants.

Alice (Czech Republic)
Alice conducted a 2-day drug prevention workshop in a refugee camp for 11 asylum seekers from Chechnya, Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine. She then followed up this workshop with a training on services available for refugees with drug addictions.

Gabi (Hungary)
Gabi is a community development specialist who focused her projects in the region of Pécs. Gabi worked with NGOs in a ten month long series of trainings called “In the Neighborhood.” The program’s aim was to create a tight network of NGOs to increase their ability to promote social justice and to coordinate the use of funds and other resources to meet the needs of people in their communities.

Kasia (Poland)
Kasia facilitated and coordinated the building of a local coalition of 60 people against domestic violence in Lodz and Koluszki. The coalition resulted in outcomes such as trainings for police officers, support groups for battered women, a media campaign, and the commitment of funds by the Mayor of Koluszki for the project. This project ultimately benefited over 700 people in the two communities.

Jelena (Serbia)
Jelena conducted a workshop on empowerment and self employment for single mothers. As a result, the women who attended the workshop decided to make souvenirs together in preparation for the October 21st national holiday. Their goal was to raise money in order to register as a women’s workshop, which they achieved. Ultimately, the women hope to create a women’s workshop which will provide employment for them all.

Maria (Slovakia)
Maria wrote three articles that were published on the Roma Press Agency website and two articles that were published in the “Roma letters” appendix of the weekly newspaper Domino forum. Maria, as a young Roma woman herself, writes about Roma in order to represent Roma perspectives and to change the stereotypes of the majority community.