Zenobia Association launched homes for peace project with the women who live in the local communities in Gaziantep from the displaced Syrians through the establishment of many home sessions, public meetings and training aimed at spreading the concepts of peacebuilding, peaceful coexistence, acceptance of the other, tolerance, rejection of hate speech and fighting terrorism as well as providing Society with qualified women cadres (societal influencers) that will raise social awareness of peace and activate the role of citizenship in order to defeat the extremist ideology inherited by conflict and war conditions.
Activities are carried out in the homes of the targeted women in the local communities in Gaziantep city, which are attractive centers for raising awareness, where societal influencers (facilitators) work in Zenobia after strengthening relations in the target community by conducting awareness sessions in these homes by inviting the neighborhood women to attend the awareness sessions, where he participates Each session has about 15-20 women.
Community influencers in Zenobia conduct sessions in an environment of trust and acceptance among facilitators and beneficiaries
With the spread of the Corona epidemic, there was a major challenge on the Zenobia Association by continuing to work in homes and in conditions of social separation and fear of gatherings in a poor environment that does not have the means of protection and prevention and does not possess an awareness of the need to take care and caution and in accordance with the decisions taken by the Turkish government to prevent gatherings and impose measures of the state of social separation Days of the transferring ban were imposed for individuals.
The Association of Zenobia had to take a decision to stop the physical sessions and search for alternative methods, and the virtual space was the way out of this challenge, but this measure at the same time imposed a challenge of another kind, which is that women in friendly houses, the majority of them are uneducated and do not find dealing with communication programs Social and modern technology tools is easy, and they are from closed societal environments are difficult for them to accept new ways of communicating.
Through our work with this group, the Zenobia Association has been able during the past years to build confidence between them and raise their awareness level so that they accept new ideas and new ways of communicating and interacting with them positively beyond the reality of our perception in the association
Planning for the transition to the online sessions started by a meeting between the entire administrative and technical team in which a decision was made to search for an easy, simple, and convenient e-platform for the target groups we deal with.
The jitsi e-platform has been chosen by the technical officer of the Zenobia Association, as one of the most important features of this platform is that it is easy for women to join directly through the chrome browser which is available on all mobile devices and this platform does not need to download a special program from google play or Appstore.
A work plan has been developed based on specific and clear points consisting of:
- Technical training for the entire Zenobia team (administrative and facilitative)
- This training was transferred to the target group, where the administrative team did several things that ultimately helped the women join, and among these things the team conducted:
- A tutorial video release by the media team explaining in a smooth and simple way how to use and enter this platform
- Training the women in the homes on how to use the program through a general explanation, then communicate individually with each woman and then follow up with them in the video produced by the media department
- the app was tried and meetings with all women were tried out through general sessions talking about the Corona epidemic and ways to protect and prevent it
- Test the link with the women before the session
- A follow-up to the entire team with women in WhatsApp groups to solve entry problems for some women by screenshot the mobile and sending them to groups and directly assisting from the team and providing directions to solve the problem and join the interactive platform with the Facilitators and women
Through these measures, the Zenobia Association team of facilitators and technicians was able to implement (more than 10 sessions between experimental and original training targeted 137 women during the past two months) The results from the beginning were encouraging and exceeded our expectations with the women and their families where the participation of men from friendly homes was also observed in the open plenary session That talks about citizenship with women and provided important opinions in the session, an as good response was noticed by the elderly and uneducated women. This contributed to achieving psychological comfort (one of the women says Zenobia brought us together when Coronavirus separated us)
The success of the experiment indicates the possibility of opening new horizons for these women in learning and training and raising their capabilities, which may include providing job opportunities for them that contribute to meeting their living needs and opening new horizons of thinking on the world that supports their capabilities in accepting the other and opening up to new worlds that contribute to enhancing their role in combating extremism and terrorism at the family level and then at the community level
Moreover, the success achieved by women in non-physical communication opened horizons for the Zenobia Association in targeting new women in different regions, expanding the circle of work and the ability of international access to share the experiences of women in Arab countries in an effort to combat extremism and terrorism and work to build sustainable and deep peace in local communities through women and enhance their role In community leadership.
Done on 01/05/2020
