The Center for Gender and Development Studies (CGDS) at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS) was awarded a grant of 900,000€ by the European Union (EU) to fund a two-year project contributing to understanding and addressing issues of gender disparity in Iraq and the MENA region.
The “Enhancing Education, Developing Community, and Promoting Visibility to Effect Gender Equity in Iraq and the Greater MENA Region” project aims to promote educational development in the field of gender studies and community capacity building in gender awareness and advocacy in three MENA countries: Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon. The project will cover a range of activities such as translating key texts, training academics, establishing a gender studies network, reviewing primary school textbooks, and producing six gender-related short films in English, Arabic, and Kurdish.
This is a pioneering project that we hope will lead to increased sensitivity and expertise, as well a the accelerated development of gender studies in our fellow universities in Iraq and the rest of MENA.
Dr. Choman Hardi, CGDS Director
The project will be supervised by the CGDS team and will work closely with non-governmental organizations, other universities and gender centers, and the private sector to assess sensitivity training needs, propose policy to governments, supervise media monitoring, and offer summer school scholarship opportunities to disadvantaged students.
The official launching event of the project took place in December 12, 2018 with the presence of the EU Ambassador to Iraq Ramon Blecua, the Minister of Higher education of Kurdistan-Iraq, UN Women, President of AUIS and director of CGDS.