CDN Gender Group

__________________________________________________________
	Gender seminar - Call for participants CDN Gender Group is organising a seminar called” Women in Contemporary Society – the ladder of inequalities” from 1st – 7th of April in Belgrade, Serbia. here
__________________________________________________________
	Gender group held a meeting The Gender Group had its regular meeting in October, 24-26, in Belgrade. Main focus of this meeting was to follow up the publication and distribution work and create concrete plan for 2007 and spring seminar realisation.
__________________________________________________________
	Presentation at CDN Summer Camp At this years' summer camp of CDN, Gender Group presented the work and the campaign. this event was also the opportunity to promote the material including T-shirts, brochures, posters, bookmarkers and flyers. It was a great success.
__________________________________________________________
Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction Intro
Welcome to the CDN Gender Group web-page! Gender Group was formed as a result of the CDN’s previous work on gender issues. Our first activity was the “Sexual (R) evolution” seminar. It was the starting point in dealing with gender related issues within this network. It was a good opportunity to share ideas and start working on the preparations for the upcoming “Gender Evolution” Study Session which was envisaged as an opportunity to involve young people, from different European countries and organizations, in answering important challenges by rising awareness on different gender issues that exist in our societies. By enriching the understanding of human rights, gender roles, gender stereotypes and gender equality in South-Eastern Europe and by providing the space for the practice of necessary skills and for the planning of future action, the study session aimed to enhance the capacity of young NGO activists from all over Europe to advocate for human rights as a way of achieving gender equality. For one week, from the 4th to 11th of December 2005, 27 participants from all over Europe approached traditional areas of action, as well as more recent one. Matters like equal conditions and equal treatment in employment, including reproductive health, non-sexist education and education for equality, equal access to political life and to decision-making were among the first; others, like sexual freedom and sexual differences, prostitution, trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation, violence in situations of armed conflict or the need to find ways of reconciling professional and family life were among the second. This study session was very important for the CDN and its future work in creating “Gender Group” because it gave us the opportunity to discuss and find differences and similarities between Eastern and Western European countries and also between different Eastern European countries on gender related problems. By doing that we have found grounds and the direction for our future work and have created projects we will have in future. This study session has given the direction for the future work because we have pinpointed the main problems and issues we will work on within our gender network. The very important findings are in the area of differences and similarities on gender related issues in Eastern and Western European countries. Since CDN is a network focusing on Eastern European region it has helped us to form a basis for the future work because we have concluded that for this region different approach for these issues has to be taken. We have concluded that the main way we will take is the education on several levels – home, schooling, work and decision making. Through the Gender Group as well as national and local organizations we will focus on educating and involving more young people to work on the gender related problems. The educational work will start with publications and e – newsletter that will be made by the international team and the dissemination of this material through the Gender Group will be the beginning of our work. We believe that the negative connotations and the state of gender issues and feminism in Eastern Europe will be changed when both genders become more involved in the work, as our non-mixed groups have concluded. Recommendations are to get more young people involved in the CDN work on promoting gender equality in Eastern Europe and to work on education and emancipation, fighting gender stereotypes, promotion of involvement of women in politics and active participation. The first stage is to work in local organizations and promotion in local universities. During the course of this study session the statement committee made up of participants and led by the prep team member has created this statement: Regards, Ivana Vujadinovic CDN Gender Group Coordinator to the top