Asian Disaster Preparedness Center together with the Department of Social Welfare Myanmar, UN Women, UN OCHA and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) are conducting a three-day training workshop on Gender in Humanitarian Action and Disaster Risk Reduction in Myanmar.
The training focuses on strategies to ensure the needs and capacities of men and boys, women and girls are taken into account in humanitarian and disaster risk reduction activities, and how these lessons can be applied in order to build the resilience of communities and contribute to sustainable development.
Participants examining social roles of men and women in Myanmar during the introduction to the "gender session".
Training participants include members from the Departments of Public Health, Education, Administration, Child and Women affairs, Culture and Religious affairs, Forestry and TV and Telecommunication. In addition, representatives from the Attorney-General’s office, Trafficking unit of police, Border affairs, civil society members and the Myanmar Red Cross society are also present.
U Soe Kyi, Director General for the Department of Social Welfare, opened the training together with Ms. Jean D'Chuna the UN Women Representative for Myanmar.
During Ms. D’Chuna’s welcome address she shared input from the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment for the 2015 floods in Myanmar which reflected that women were disproportionately affected by the event, yet played a limited role in preparedness and response activities. Women could not access early warning messages as they did not have mobile phones, or did not hear loudspeakers.
Participants draw their version of a typical woman from the middle ages to the present day revealing changing social norms.
The training is based on the GenCap (Gender Standby Capacity Project) modules on Gender and Humanitarian Action and are adapted to the specific disaster response context and framework in Myanmar.
By ensuring that the needs of women, men, girls and boys are addressed equally across all spectrums of disaster risk reduction and humanitarian action, more lives can be saved. Collaboration across government departments and NGOs is essential for effective response and recovery.
The training is organized with support from the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
For further information, contact Ms. Maria Holtsberg, Project Manager, at Mariah [at] adpc.net.