On 28^th August of 2010 year took place the exhibition titled “the role of a woman in out society” organized by “Society without violence” NGO. During the exhibition were presented works created by 14-18 year-old girls who had participated in the trainings organized by SWV in different regions. Were presented thematic pictures, compositions, collages as well as hand made works.

The exhibition was on competitive basis. At the end of the exhibition, with the help of the participants voting, was chosen the best work. The winner was the picture titled “The housewife” by 18 year-old Alchangyan Margarita from Margahovit village, Lori region.

The exhibition was opened with organization members' speeches, and then the guests moved to watching the works and voting. At the exhibition were out partner from Norway, trainers from regions, journalists, other gusts and of course many of the authors from Saratak and Margahovit villages who presented their works and for whom the organized exhibition, their presence as well as the warm atmosphere was great honor.

During the exhibition was also presented a short video about the girls, which made the atmosphere warmer and more active.

The organized exhibition was very important and considerable event for our organization as well as for the girls who participated in our trainings, as that was their first exhibition where, with the gained knowledge from the trainings and their own talent, they could express themselves with their works about the topic and to present the role of a woman by their apprehension.

"Society without violence" NGO is organizing an exhibition titled "The role of
the woman in our society", where the works will be presented created by
14-18 year-old girls who participated in SWV trainings held in different
regions.

Exhibition will take place on the 28th of August at 15:00 o'clock in "Teqeyan centre" (Khanjyan 50, next to the Chess house).

The training in Shahumyan village lasted 2 days and the first day’s topic was ” Gender equality”.

The participants in Shahumyan village were very active and were waiting impatiently for the beginning of the training. When it was talked about the concept of gender, they were doing some additions and telling their ideas. The girls were talking sincerely and wanted to discuss the gender problem. Each of them was bringing her example and wanted to talk about it loudly. All of them were worried and wanted concrete solutions to be given to that inequality. They knew each other better and decided to help and solve each others’ problems. They wanted to give advices which they had never done before this training.

At the beginning of the first part they were asked if they had ever heard about word gender. They had heard about women rights but didn’t know them. Some of the participants showed their knowledge that they got from their school classes but it was not much and incomplete. It was talked about gender inequalities in different areas. The girls were actively discussing all that areas and making suggestions.

Then, the participants were divided into 2 groups and did a team work. They were asked to present men’s and women’s characteristics. The participants discussed the positive and negative sides of those characteristics. Then we talked about gender stereotypes which are rooted in the cast of the society and interferes the radical changes and development of gender equality according to international norms.

In the second part of the training was talked about violence towards women. The participants admitted that the violence towards women is a common thing in our society. The cases about violence were discussed and there were brought myths and facts about women rights. The participants watched a movie devoted to women rights. Everybody was discussing actively the movie as it was similar to their everyday life. At the end of the training the participants filled the knowledge rating papers and from results we got know that our meeting gave them lot of knowledge for their further development.

The second day’s training was devoted to “Leadership”.

The meeting wasn’t a surprise for the participants as the previous day we had had a meeting.

During the meeting the girls were expressing their opinions about leadership.

The participants started to discuss actively the styles of the leadership. They said that in authoritarian style of leadership may exist force and pressure which is not allowed in democratic countries. Were also discussed the imperfections of the free style as in this case the role and authorship of the leader is reducing. In the end of the discussions the participants came to a conclusion that more preferable is democratic style but in some cases an experienced leader should use the other 2 styles as well.

The girls were freely expressing their thoughts and were debating about different problems. Many of them, on the base of gained knowledge, were trying to evaluate their own behavior: whether they were right as a leader or not.

In the last part of the meeting the girls were suggested a role-play during which 7 participants were discussing the Directorate’s task about choosing 4 people to dredge the potatoes in the field. Each of the participants who were imitating the given character was trying to be persuasive. The role play was followed by 7 people who made their comments about the behavior of each character and what they said during the discussion. The girls were trying to guess the role of each participant.

The participants like the role-play and even after the training they were continuing to discuss and talk about right and wrong types of leadership. Two of the participants gave their works about “The role of a woman in out society” to present them during the exhibition.

The training reached its aim as many of the girls at the beginning of the training mentioned that they couldn’t be leaders but at the end of the raining, understanding the importance of the leadership, they admitted that there are many leaders among them, and told us about their difficulties and victories.

The training in Astghadzor village lasted one day and the topic of the day was “Gender equality”.

The aim of the program was to let the participants know about women rights, to discuss gender problems and to talk about the violence in families. The participants were 25 girls from final classes.

At the beginning of the training the girls were listening to us with interest and a little bit frightened, but little by little the ice was broken and the girls were actively participating in discussions of the problems during the seminar. After that we moved to an exercise which calls “What is the difference between men and women?” the aim of which was explaining the difference between “sex” and “gender” and to give the definition of the gender.

The participants were divided into 2 groups. One of the groups had to give the characteristics of a woman and the other group the characteristics of a man. After the discussions the participants concluded that only physiological characteristics have strict sexual ethnicity.

Were discussed the differences between a woman and a man by their nature, education, culture and social conditions. And the examples were brought about the positive and negative consequences of those differences.

During the seminar the girls had different ideas about gender equality. From the girls’ point of view if there is gender equality in culture and education fields, they hope that little by little it will be also in the political, social and work fields.

The participants were explained what the gender stereotype is. Very interesting discussion were about gender stereotypes.

Then, was discussed the topic about violence which is the chain of activities done on purpose by a member of a family towards the other, making the latter to do the way he wants, dictating his wish and trying to control. It was talked about how to stop the violence towards the women and children, to protect them and support the development of the punishment mechanize against the violence.

After that we talked about the types of violence: physical, psychological and sexual and the girls brought the examples of violence and we moved to an exercise about the violence which aim was to make them understand and differ the invented stories from the real facts, because nowadays in our society formed a number of “myths” about the violence.

At the end of the seminar the girls were given questionnaires to fill which they did with excitement and pleasure. They were also given a chance to participate in competition-exhibition organized by “Society without violence”.