The following topics were covered in this training:

• Who are children?
• What are child rights?
• Child rights before Islam
• Child rights in Islam
• Four rights of children (survival rights, development rights, participation rights, and protection rights)
• Child’s position in Afghanistan
• Children’s situation in 2003 in Afghanistan
• Child Rights Convention
• Child Rights Convention items about participation rights
• Survival rights of children according to the Child Rights Convention
• History of child rights
• Attitude towards children in court
• Attitude toward children

Output of Training

Ms. Khatera, one of the participants of child rights raining said, “Now I know what child rights are and how much important are survival and development rights of children. Children have to be protected by the family. Everyone has to take care of them and pay full attention to them.”

Kabul, 27th June, 2005

This training was conducted on June 27, 2005 for 3 days at AWN’s meeting hall in Kabul. Financial support was provided by Womankind.

There were a total of 19 participants at the training, 14 women and 5 men. Three of the participants were from governmental offices and 16 from local NGOs.

Topics:

• What is training?
• What is the need of training?
• Difference between training and education
• How elders and youth learn
• Style of sitting
• Training methods
• Trainers’ roles
• Communication
• Importance of communication
• Correct communication
• Communication level
• Qualities of good listeners and speakers
• Origins of communication

Impact of training

The training has positive results. This was the first time the participants were invited to training on this subject. One of the participants by the name of Farida said, “After attending this training, now we know how to use topics that could be beneficial in our trainings. We also learned more about how to teach participants and how to open their minds.

Another participant, Gulam Mohamad from SWNHO, said, “I understand the key points from this training. Before, the teachers training had very simple definitions but this training they made things very clear and the trainers helped us solve the problems. The trainers also took part in the work with others. The level of knowledge in these 3 days was very high. We feel differently toward the behaviors of communication that we learned from this training.”

This training was concluded on June 29, 2005 at 2:30 after distributing the certificates.

Parwan, 14-June, 2005

The Parwan campaign is the result from the previous gender based violence trainings. The trainings were conducted by HDCAW and supervised by the AWN trainer. Of the two campaigns that took place on June 14, 2005, approximately 100 women participated in one campaign and in the second there were about 50 participants, both men and women. The participants were from the head of Showra and also from the community.

The trainers talked about violence and how we could remove violence from our society. Then the participants talked about violence from their point of view.

One of the participants by the name of Qari Hbdull Matin, a teacher in Lagmani High School, said, “One of the reasons of violence is poor economic conditions. For example, my wife always asks me for modern and expensive dresses. When I try to make her understand that I cannot afford to buy these dresses for her, she never understands me. Then I became so frustrated that I hit her because she does not understand this.”

Another participant, Zaheem, said, “The marriages by force are also one of the reasons for violence. It would be better if these trainings were conducted for parents to open their minds and rethink arranged marriages. This way, we can remove or decrease the violence in the community.”

One of the other participants said, “I have a 13 year old son. He asked me to buy a bicycle for him. I told him that my salary is not enough. I can’t afford to buy him a bicycle. So I became very angry and frustrated and I hit him. And when his mother wanted to say something to defend her son, I hit her too. I know that this is violence and the reason is the poor economic conditions of this society.”

The participants made some requests to the government:

1. The government has to make laws to punish the criminals commit acts of violence against the rest of society.
2. To remove the violence and decrease its presence in society.
3. The government and the civil society have to work together toward removing violence in the country.

The detail of these workshops is given below:

Date	Location	Number of Participant
3 – 4 June – 2005	Jalalabad	20
14 – 15 June –2005	Jalalabad	20
25 – 26 June –2005	Jalalabad	20

Women in Afghanistan never had outreach to a source where they could know about their legal rights and rights to participate in the parliamentary election. It is a great achievement that women who attended these trainings are now aware about their rights to participate in elections. The can now defend their rights and will actively participate in the electoral process.

The workshop covered the following topics:

• What is parliament;
• The history of Parliament in the Afghanistan;
• What is referendum;
• What is the system/process of Parliamentary election;
• Role and responsibilities of political parties in the parliament;
• The parliament and its importance in a country;
• The parliament process in Afghanistan;
• The importance of women's participation in the parliament;
• Comparing Afghan parliamentary election with the other countries;

AWN is grateful to Afghan Women ADSHA for their support in conducting these workshops and enabling us to raise awareness about the political situation and women’s role in the coming elections.

• What is conflict?
• Reason for conflict
• Type of conflict
• Period of conflict
• Communication
• Principle of communication
• Importance of communication
• Violence and its types
• Compromise
• Mediator
• Discussion
• Peace
• Fanaticism
• Aim of peace
• Peace process

• The goal of training
• Meaning of gender
• How to solve inequality between women and men
• The role of women and men in the community
• Who I Am (in the family, community, and organization)
• What is my role and responsibility?
• Choosing the gender of children
• The history of gender development
• The rights of women and men in Islam
• Solving the Case

• Purpose of training
• Equality of men and women in the society
• Definition of Gender
• Role and participation of men and women in society
• Who I am ( at family society , participation level )
• What is my role and responsibilities
• Gender history
• Men and women’s rights according to Islam
• Case Study

Afghan Women’s Network is always in attempt to build the capacity of women and open the door of prosperity and happiness to them through conducting workshops and training session according their needs.

In this connection AWN conducted a three days workshop under the topic of Conflict and its Resolution with the financial support of GTZ from 10 to 13 May, 2005 in which 25 participants form government and non-governmental organizations took active participation.

The main highlighted topics of this training are listed below:

First Day

• What is Conflict
• Reason for Conflict
• Type of Conflict
• Period of Conflict

Second Day

• Communication
• Principle of Communication
• Importance of Communication
• Violence and its Types

Third Day:

• Compromise
• Mediator
• Discussion
• Fanaticism
• Peace
• Aim of Peace
• Peace Process

Training Output:

During the discussion session it was revealed that the result of the training was good and very effective for all participants. Some participants were unaware about the main causes of the conflict and did not know that how conflict is created and what are its negative effects and how a small misunderstanding creates a big issue in a family even some time it happen to break family relation.

Mr. Jawad one of the participants find this training very efficient he said with the help of this training I was able to solve the problem of my neighbor’s family who were unhappy with the birth of a girl in their family. I explained that it is a natural phenomena and it is the matter of God. It is very bad to be rude with the mother or to hold her responsible for giving birth to a girl baby. After clearing this misconception and satisfying the family members they promised to stop such attitude towards the mother and the child.

Ms. Hanifa another participant said: Through this training I was able convince a family who had very bad attitude towards a girl for taking birth in the family. Being born as a girl she even tried suicide many times. After raising awareness about the facts, they assured to change their behavior.

The training ended in a peaceful atmosphere and all participants were thankful to AWN for conducting such training.

Child Rights -- Three Days Training 6th June 2005

Kabul, 6th June, 2005

Afghan women’s Network is always in attempt and struggle to build the capacity of women through conducting workshops to raise awareness regarding child rights and women rights. AWN recently conducted three days Child Rights workshop at AWN meeting hall with financial support of GTZ in which 22 participants took active participation.

The main highlighted topics are listed below:

• What is right
• Who is child
• Attitude towards child
• Child rights according Islam
• Child rights history
• Four child rights ( Right to live , Right of development , Rights of participation and support right )
• Attitude towards child in court
• Child’s position in Afghanistan

Training Result

This workshop was attended by many teachers of kindergarten pre-school playgroups.

Ms. Mastora, Principle Kindergarten Ministry said that we find this training very resourceful and useful and we are able now to conduct this training for the teachers so as raise awareness about the child rights attitude among them and explain how to work and deal with the children.
We are so thankful to AWN for paving such tremendous opportunity to us and we suggest conducting such trainings in the Kindergarten Ministry for all the teachers.

Four days Genders training workshop was held at the Women Ministry hall, Kabul by the financial support of UNDP (United Nation Development Program) for Ministry of disabled and handicapped persons in which a 10 participants form Ministry of Disabled Persons and 9 participants from Women Ministry took active participation.

The main highlighted content of the training are listed below:

• Participation
• Period for Participation
• Situation Analysis
• Case Study of ( Mansoor and Nasim )
• How to Analyze Gender
• What is PRA
• Principles of PRA

During the training many discussion sessions took place through which it was possible to brighten the minds of participants and enlighten the fact to eradicate discrimination between men and women.

CODE OF CONDUCT FOR NGOs LAUNCHED ON MAY 30TH

Kabul, 30th May, 2005

“Not–for –profit organization (NGOs) in Afghanistan are publicly launching an NGO Code of Conduct to help better regulate not— for – profit organization in Afghanistan and to help communicate more openly about our work with the afghan people the Code Of Conduct will benefit not –for- profit organizations by establishing clear standards of good conduct that signatories must follow, and also benefit the people, the media and the government by allowing them to better to monitor and verify our development work in Afghanistan.”

This was declared in a half-day gathering for launching NGO Code of Conduct which was held at Mewand Hall, Kabul organized by AWN, ACBAR and ANCB.

The program started with recitation from Holey Quran.

Ms. Anja de Beer, head of ACBAR, welcomed the participants and formerly opened the program. Mr. Shahidee from Economy Ministry said: There are many NGOs working inside Afghanistan and it is hard to assess which one is the most active one. There fields of activities are diverse like construction, rehabilitation, health and agriculture etc. Our analysis are based on their periodical reports which can be enhanced with the help of some coordination bodies like AWN, ACBAR and ANCB and I on behalf of Economy Ministry promise to support these core NGOs in order to enhance coordination among them and to play a vital role in regulation related works of NGOs.

UN delegate Mr. Shano said: from the last 20 years I am working with NGOs and I am proud that many NGOs are registered as Member with us and I am happy to conduct the COC that will play a vital role in Afghan community. My best wishes are with you for accomplishing it.

Mr. Saeed Fazullah Waheed, director of ANCB, expressing his views said: Most of you may be aware that when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the people of Afghanistan started the Struggle (Jihad) for safeguarding their religion and country. The human loving and peace loving people of the world started thinking about the ways and means for the provision of unconditional humanitarian assistance to needy Afghans .

After 1980 some international and foreign NGOs had obtained enough confidence to initiate humanitarian assistance to Afghans in the refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran. From 1980 to 1984 many people especially women and children used to live helpless in such areas which were out of control of the governments of that time. it were only the NGOs who initiated projects for providing shelter, food, drinking water and education to help the people of those areas without any discrimination. After withdrawal of the Soviet Union’s troops from Afghanistan in 1989, besides the international and foreign NGOs, some Afghan NGOs were also established with the help of international NGOs.

In the above discussed crucial period, our Afghan mothers and sisters played a significant role, some well – educated women also established NGOs who later on formed a network known as Afghan Women Network (AWN). These coordination bodies ACBAR, ANCB, AWN and SWABAC connect together their activities to serve the people of Afghanistan.
Therefore, the NGO community also desires to present themselves to the people accountably and transparent, and that is why we are gathered here to make you aware about the Code Of conduct of NGOs.

Mr. Naeem Saleemi delegate of ACBAR said : I am happy to announce that the most desired day for ACBAR, ANCB, AWN and its members is to publicly launch NGO’s Code of Conduct in Afghanistan inorder to help NGOs better regulate and communicate more openly about our work with the Afghan people in Afghanistan.

The Code Of Conduct will benefit NGOs, by establishing clear standards of good conduct that signatories must follow, and also benefits the people, the media and the government by allowing them too better monitor and verify our development work in Afghanistan.

Many of these organization have been active in Afghanistan for over 15 years working with local communities in health, education, agriculture and water supplies projects that have been carried out in every province inside Afghanistan and also with refugee populations outside Afghanistan. But this experience and knowledge is not enough, we have to do better in explaining our work and showing that we are both accountable and transparent in our operations. Key requirements of the code of conduct require a signatory to be Accountable, Transparent and Professional. By accountability we must explain what we do and how we do it to the local communities, donors and the government.

By professionalism we mean that we must aspire to good standards of conduction in our work on behalf of our beneficiaries of projects and on behalf of our organization employees.
By having effective communication we are being transparent, we have nothing to hide. Mistakes, in our works should be explained and should be confessed if any.

In conjunction with the new NGO legislation drawn up by the Government, the Cod of Conduct launching today also intends to separate more clearly those humanitarian organization with clear principles and standards from so-called NGOs which are in fact private business companies, or otherwise do not conform to the high standard by the Code of conduct.

Heba Trazi Office manager of AWN said : Humanitarian and development agencies have assisted the Afghan People through the years of war against Soviet occupation, the civil wars, the Taliban regime and now the brighter days of post 9 – 11 December Afghanistan, we have shared Afghanistan’s recent history and have a realistic understanding of the regional contexts, environments and people of the country, through this paper, we seek to clarify our specific identity as not –for –profit non Governmental organizations (NGOs ) who meet the standards of the Afghanistan Code of conduct We also present aspects of our contribution to the democratic nation that is emerging from the rubble of decades of war and we address some of the prevailing misconceptions about the nature of NGOs in Afghanistan.

According to data compiled from 31 agencies which have applied to the code of conduct since 2002, these agencies have:

• Provided health education to over 6.3 million Afghans
• Providing food, seed and tools to over 2.4 million Afghans
• Have built , repaired or supported :
  • 426 clinics, taking care of over 5.3 million patients
  • 3,339 schools, supporting 566,434 students (and overseen the training of 29,192 teachers)
  • 6,949km of tertiary roads
  • 18,833 of thousands of wells

Three days Leadership Training for women

Kabul, 4th May, 2005

Three days Leadership training by the support of GTZ was held from 2nd May to 4th May, 2005 at AWN meeting hall, Kabul in which 18 participants from different Ministries took active participation.

The main highlights of the training were on the following topics:

• Definition of Leadership
• Type of leadership
• Definition of responsibilities
• Supervisor good points
• Method
• Human relationship
• Related points for a good leader from Scholars point of view
• An Administrator at the same time is a leader
• Work / work definition
• Three main point related to a Leader
• Role, Supervision in Management

The output of the training was good and productive and all participants were satisfied and happy with the strategy and procedure that were adopted by the trainers during the training.

Ms. Kamila, one of the participants said: I am very happy to have a chance to participate in such training that can really help us to be a good leader. Being a working woman, I have learned how to be more effective at my work and how to be a good leader. I am really thankful from AWN for paving the way for building the capacity of women and it is a very good effort for the welfare of women.

Mr. Yunos, another participant said: through this training I am now able to solve the problems which I faced during my work and I am happy to have joined such a useful training.

Ms. Latifa said: I consider this training to be very effective and essential for every one especially who work at offices and I hope to have such training for other Ministries too.

The training was ended at peaceful atmosphere and all participants appreciated AWN for conducting such a workshop.

Gender Training workshop in Balkh Province

Balkh, 25th April, 2005

Gender training workshop were held at the women Ministry on 25/04/05 at Balkh province in which 22 participants form women Ministry, Health Ministry, Education Ministry, and staff of human rights took active participation.

The main purpose of this training is highlighted below:

• To raise awareness about Gender issues, its role and responsibility of women and men.
• Demonstration of Gender among the participants

The main highlights of the training were on the following topics:

• Discrimination among men and women / Finding solution
• Gender Definition
• Application of sex and Gender
• Problem solution
• Rights of Men and Women according to Islam
• Role of Governmental and Non-Governmental Organizations
• Role / Activities of men and women
• Who I am (at family, social and work level) and what are my roles and responsibilities.
• History of Gender

The output of the training was productive and fruitful through this training AWN was able to change to change the mind of participants and they agreed that there is no difference in boys and girls in performance, ability and roles.

One of the participants, named Saeed Ashaq, said although I am an educated person yet I was unaware of the rights that a woman has towards his husband.

Another participant, Ms. Ayesha said: I discussed this issue of Gender in my family and assured them that there is no difference between a boy and a girl.

Ms. Fawzia Nawabi said: at first day when I went home we had received guest, I explained to them what ever I learned and I was happy that I was able to convince them about the equality of gender and she agreed that she will no more discriminate between their children.

The training ended at peaceful atmosphere and participants took keen interest in every day of work and suggested to have the second phase of the training as soon as possible and showed their interest in conducting such trainings in villages and other districts.

• Case study of Nazam and Mansoor
• Sanitation Analysis
• Gender Analysis
• What is Gender
• Important of Gender
• What is PRA

Training Result
As result of group discussion during training session AWN was able to induce the participants about equality of men and women. One of the participants named Husain who had a different view about women working outdoors and was not convinced of the ability of women to take active part in social activities, however, at the end of training, he too recognized that women are able to play significant role in all parts of life.
Ms. Zahra, another participant, promised to conduct this training in her own organization in order to raise awareness and eliminate discrimination between men and women.
Ms. Rahela, staff member of MSH, suggested that such training should be conducted in other provinces too.

The training was ended in a peaceful atmosphere the participants were thankful to AWN and its members for providing such training.