Gender-Inclusive Practices for NGOs and Adult Educators

Description

Civil society organizations, NGOs, and adult education professionals work every day to defend and promote equity and inclusion.

Yet, many still face difficulties in recognizing how forms of discrimination affect the people they serve. In other words: how to turn good intentions into practical action.

In fact, persistent gender inequalities and overlapping barriers linked to culture, age, disability, or socio-economic status require more than just awareness to be effectively applied in daily work.

This course is intended to offer trainers, practitioners, and community educators a solid and accessible introduction to gender mainstreaming and intersectionality.

The aim is to give them the knowledge and the skills to make their work more inclusive and effective, to strengthen their capacity to design, implement, and evaluate more inclusive programs, policies, and organizational practices.

Combining clear theoretical explanation with practical approaches, this course will make civil society actors able to design, deliver, and evaluate effective initiatives according to their specific contexts and priorities.

Throughout the course, participants will work with real case studies, group discussions, and role play based on experiences from NGOs and community projects.

They will learn to use gender analysis frameworks, design activities that make participation more inclusive, and identify simple but effective entry points for mainstreaming gender and diversity into their work.

At the same time, they’ll experience how to develop strategies for advocacy and organizational change.

A central element will also be the creation of personal action plans, as each participant will be asked to identify concrete changes they can make to promote inclusion and equality in their own professional context.

All of that while being supported by feedback from peers and trainers.

By the end of the course, participants will have a solid understanding of gender-sensitive and intersectional approaches, and they will be able to recognize and address the ways in which gender and intersecting identities shape access to opportunities, rights, and resources.

Also, they will have acquired a set of practical skills, analytical tools, and action-oriented strategies to foster more inclusive civil society initiatives.

Therefore, they will leave ready to design and implement initiatives that are more inclusive, more equitable, and better able to represent the communities they serve.

Concept by Mikhail Silvestro Sustersic

Learning outcomes

The course will help participants to:

• Understand the key concepts of gender, gender mainstreaming, and intersectionality, and explain their relevance in civil society work;
• Apply gender analysis tools and intersectional frameworks to design, review, and evaluate programs with an inclusive perspective;
• Identify barriers to inclusion and propose strategies that respond to the needs of diverse and marginalized groups;
• Apply intersectional thinking when developing activities, advocacy initiatives, or organizational policies;
• Facilitate group discussions and training sessions that promote equity, respect, and participation in civil society contexts;
• Design actionable plans for integrating inclusive practices into their own work and institutional contexts, outlining concrete steps to integrate gender-sensitive and intersectional practices.

Tentative schedule

Day 1 – Introduction to the course

• Introduction to the course and the Academy;
• Introduction to the host city and the week’s cultural activities;
• Icebreaker activities;
• Presentations of the participants’ schools and institutions;

Understanding gender and intersectionality

• Understanding gender, intersectionality, and inclusion;
• Exploring equity vs. equality and power relations;
• Group activity: mapping inclusion challenges in participants’ organizations.

Day 2 – Applying gender mainstreaming and inclusion in NGO work

• Gender mainstreaming explained: rationale and global frameworks (CEDAW, SDGs, etc.);
• Understanding intersecting identities (youth, disability, ethnicity, socio-economic background);
• Workshop: using gender and intersectional analysis tools for needs assessment;
• Peer exchange: how these tools apply to different civil society contexts.

Day 3 – Designing inclusive projects

• Applying gender mainstreaming in project design and proposal writing;
• Conducting needs assessments while avoiding tokenism and addressing structural barriers;
• Group activity: designing inclusive stakeholder engagement and communication strategies;
• Group presentations and feedback.

Day 4 – Implementation, monitoring, and evaluation

• Strategies for inclusive project implementation in NGOs and community initiatives;
• Designing monitoring and evaluation frameworks with gender and intersectional indicators;
• Case study analysis: good practices and lessons learned from real NGO projects;
• Reflection: how to adapt these practices to participants’ own contexts.

Day 5 – Gender and inclusion at the organizational level

• Strategies for inclusive project implementation in NGOs and community initiatives;
• Designing monitoring and evaluation frameworks with gender and intersectional indicators;
• Case study analysis: good practices and lessons learned from real NGO projects;
• Reflection: how to adapt these practices to participants’ own contexts;
• Course evaluation: round-up of acquired competencies, feedback, and discussion;
• Awarding of the course Certificate of Attendance.

Day 6 – Structured cultural activities

• Structured cultural activity(ies) according to the hosting location;
• Learning journal: individual written reflection on the course experience;
• Course reflection: self-reflection and review of course materials and resources.

Download or share

Get weekly recaps on confirmed sessions!