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ASTRA
YOUTH WORKSHOP ON ADVOCACY IN THE AREA OF THE SEXUAL AND
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND RIGHTS
1-3
July, 2004 /
Warsaw
/
Poland
Contents:
Participants
Trainers
Goals
of the meeting
Content
of the workshop in short
Results of the meeting
Participants:
Lilith
Arabajyan, Women’s Rights Center/Armenia,
maduri@mail.ru
Aliaksandr ‘Sasha’ Kuushynan, Youth Democrats/
Belarus
, on@tut.by
Christina Haralanova, Gender Education, Research and Technologies/
Bulgaria
, christina@consultant.bg
Dessilslava Doncheva, Bulgarian Family Planning and Sexual Health
Association/Bulgaria, dessi_i_doncheva@yahoo.com
Dora Georgiou, Cyprus Family Planning/Cyprus,
ridoraki@hotmail.com
Tamta Komakhidze, Women’s Center /
Georgia
, tkomax@hotmail.com
Nino Brachuli, Women’s Center/Georgia,
brachuli@doctor.com
Julia Spronz, Habeas Corpus Working Group/
Hungary
, juli@habeascorpus.hu
Andrijana Trajanovska, Hera/Macedonia,
ane28_2000@yahoo.com
Irena Ivanovska, Hera/Macedonia,
iirena@hotmail.com
Iwona Stefańczyk, Federation for Women and Family
Planning/Poland, iwona_st@astra.org.pl
Elwira Chruściel, Federation for Women and Family
Planning/Poland, info@astra.org.pl
Justyna Włodarczyk, Ponton/Poland,
jwlodarczyk@poczta.neostrada.pl
Aleksandra Józefowska, Ponton/Poland,
omukotu@o2.pl
Katarzyna Wasilewska, Ponton/Poland,
wasilewskak@poczta.onet.pl
Klaudia Sitkowska, Ponton/Poland,
info@ponton.org.pl
Anna Grzywacz, Ponton/Poland,
Sally_bowles@poczta.onet.pl
Maria Huma, Ponton/Poland,
topik6@wp.pl
Olga Kamińska, Ponton,YouAct/ Poland,
o_kaminska@tlen.pl
Irina Anisimova, Novgorod Gender Center/Russia,
aia@adm.nov.ru
Adriana Lamackova, Pro-Choice/Slovakia,
adalamackova@hotmail.com
Jovana Kusic, Youth of JAZAS/Serbia,
azarot@eunet.yu
Sanja Panjkovic, Youth of JAZAS/Serbia,
sanjapanjkovic@yahoo.com
Pavlo Maistruk, Women Heath & Family Planning/Ukraine,
maistruk@whfp.kiev.ua
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Trainers:
Adriana
Lamackova, Pro-Choice/Slovakia,
adalamackova@hotmail.com
Anneke Wensing, YouAct/ Netherlands,
a.wensing@wpf.org
Iwona Stefańczyk, Federation
for Women and Family Planning/Poland,
iwona_st@astra.org.pl
Olga Kamińska,
Ponton,YouAct/ Poland,
o_kaminska@tlen.pl
Justyna Włodarczyk,
Ponton/Poland, jwlodarczyk@poczta.neostrada.pl
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Goals
of the meeting:
At
the beginning of the workshop, participants discussed goals of the
meeting. Following goals have been agreed:
- Find
out how to cooperate with different backgrounds
- Develop
a strategy for a group
- Find
common needs of young people from participant’s countries
- Create
background to establish groups of volunteers on national and
close international level (in the region).
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Content
of the workshop in short:
International
conferences on Human Rights (
Cairo
+5,
Beijing
+5)
Workshop
was led by Anneke Wensing and Olga Kamińska. Participants worked
in groups on background information of the international
conferences on human rights, making posters and presentations
connected with the selected issue. We discussed following
international events and documents: ICPD, ICPD+5, FWCW (
Beijing
),
BEIJING
+5, CEDAW, CRC
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Human
rights protection systems: European (ECHR) and UN (TMB)
Lectures
on the European Court of Human Rights and the UN human rights
system (mainly Treaty Monitoring Bodies and their complaint
procedures) were given by Iwona Stefańczyk (TMBs) and Adriana
Lamackova (ECHR) and followed with a discussion on how to use
international human rights instruments.
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Country
presentations
– the main countries’ problems concerning sexual and
reproductive health and rights issues
All
participants gave speeches/lectures/presentations on the situation
in their countries. The most important needs of particular
countries are as follows:
Armenia
- no
sexual education at schools (luck of professionals to teach),
youth get information from alternative sources
- no
modern contraception available
- abortion
is legal but there is a luck of modern equipment for
performing abortions
- law
on RHR adopted
Belarus
- no
recognition of SRHR
- high
abortion rate among youth
- lack
of sexual education
Bulgaria
- contraception
not included in health insurance (neither abortion)
- lack
of youth friendly services provided by the government (only
NGOs do it)
- lack
of sex education in school curricula, more info on RSHR needed
- discrimination
of minorities and gender-based
- raise
in use of abortion as a family planning mean
Cyprus
- sex
education in schools needed
- stop
gender discrimination
- youth
friendly services
Georgia
- lack
of sexual education
- lack
of youth-friendly services
- abortion
due to cultural taboos, not accessible to young women (they
are afraid of seeking abortion) – teenagers get married or
choose unsafe, backstreet abortion
Hungary
- youth
friendly services
- lack
of objective sex education
- no
access to information and counseling
Macedonia
- lack
of sex education in schools
- condom
awareness campaign (lower prices)
- youth
friendly services on RSH, improve accessibility
- awareness-raising
campaign on RSHR
- development
of national HIV/AIDS strategy
- safe
abortion including counseling
Poland
- lack
of sexual education
- lack
of youth friendly services
- men
involvement
Russia
- lack
of family planning services in local communities for youth
- bad
protection of the right to acces to health services for youth
- lack
of proper sex education in some of the schools
- lack
of information on reproductive health
Serbia
and
Montenegro
- improvement
of sex education
- peer
education in high schools and universities
- more
counseling centers needed on RSHR (some NGOs have youth
friendly services)
- the
luck of youth friendly services
- expensive
condoms
- media
involvement in providing youth with RSHR education needed
- more
programs for marginalized groups
Slovakia
- Lack
of objective sex education
- Full
paid contraceptives
- Lack
of RSH policy
- Increasing
pressure from Catholic Church
Ukraine
- Situation:
country in crisis, increasing mortality rate for men (injuries,
alcohol, abuse, heart diseases, cancer, suicide), decreasing
birth rate, tuberaculosis epidemic HIV/AIDS, all health care
services paid by patients
- Men
involvement in RSHR issue – especially young men
- Healthy
lifestyle promotion among young men
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How
to energize and encourage youth to work on the SRHR issue –
lecture by Anneke Wensing
During
the lecture, following topics were covered: what are the criteria
of choosing volunteers – a good volunteer profile, what
motivates and demotivates them, what are their motivations, what
we could do to
countenance
them to participate in our actions. As a result of a discussion,
participants pointed out following issues:
What
motivates young people to work on RSHR:
- the
way young people want to work
- Exploring
themselves
- Know
problems best
- Positive
feedback from adults
- Recognition
for your work
- Communication
skills & empathy
- Positive
and visible results
What
demotivates them:
- Feeling
of being used by “adult” organization
- Takes
too much time
- Planning
can be a problem
- Working
for free
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Basic
ideas for AstraYouth, possibilities, expectations, chances and
challenges. Is there a will
and need
to act together? – discussion
Participants
discussed what can ASTRAyouth group do in the field of RSHR to
support participants' activities they undertake on local level.
The discussion resulted with drafting AstraYouth's role:
- Share
experiences, show a successful way of solving problems
- Capacity
building (trainings, seminars)
- Youth
voice from the region
- Draft
some general recommendations
- Information
sharing (written materials, campaign materials, experiences
from campaigns)
- Transmitter
to find new contacts, e.g. for potential partnership
- Website
with useful resources for youth, legal documents, practice
information
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Different
faces of discrimination of women: is feminism an answer?
Reproductive rights as equality issue – lecture and discussion
led by Justyna Włodarczyk
Who
is the feminist – stereotypes in different countries, what is
feminism. Feminist approach to RR was discussed. As a result of
the discussion, following characteristics of feminist approach to
the SRHR were poited: it starts with woman’s point of view,
considers SRR services without prejudice and discrimination,
focuses on access to information, equal opportunities/equal
results).
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RR
issues – skills connected with media campaign – lecture and
workshop on campaign planning, practical exercises with a camera -
led by Olga Kamińska
Participants
were given useful information connected with the issue of how to
work with the media:
- How
to prepare to interview face-to-face, on air…
- How
to prepare press conference, press kit, press tips.
- All
of us had possibility to give a speech in the front of camera
and use skills which have
been
given to us by the lecturer. The tape was reviewed afterwards
and performance of each participant was discussed with
feedback information from the group.
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Results
of the meeting:
As
a result of the workshop, participants have decided that there is
a need to create youth wing of ASTRA Network. We have found common
problems we want to deal with together, so that our activities can
be empowered by cooperation in ASTRAyouth group which should serve
as a place of sharing skills, ideas, making campaigns, etc. As a
group of youth coming from different European countries (especially
from the Balkan states, Central and Eastern European countries) we
see the possibility to be involved in activities of the ASTRA
Network and work actively towards making lives of youth better.
ASTRAyouth
group has been officially created, however participants of the
training are expected to finally declare whether they want to be
involved in ASTAR youth group in an e-mail discussion. After
completion of the process of declarations gathering, the
youth wing of ASTRA Network will be officially launched. We are
going to work on the strategy of it’s activity, mission, and
discuss a plan to create steering committee of it. We hope to
become the strong voice of youth from the region in the area of
SRHR.
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