In June 2020 the OEEC launched the Woman Playlists program for women-leaders. Participants were free to choose workshops, trainings or lectures picking them from a general list and thus creating a customised learning curriculum.
The first playlist entitled «I am a Leader!» was about the inner strength, personal boundaries and self-assertion. The second one, «Local Community Leader»was about collaboration and community engagement.
As the training process progressed, an idea came about to make the third playlist «Women for Women» where the participants would be able to share their expertise or skills and inspire each other.
The Woman Playlists program was provided through the international Cities of Learning platform. Following the results of the first program in June and July 2020:
- All in all, within a week, 163 requests to take part in the online course have been received, including 47 per cent from Minsk, 55 per cent from other Belarusian communities and 8 per cent requests from 11 other countries, among others from Belarusian women and girls studying or working in those countries.
- At least 77 women have developed their competences related to personal leadership: self-presentation, self-confidence, time management, creativity, etc. in the «I Am a Leader» playlist.
- At least 31 women have developed their local community leadership competences like problem definition and objective setting, planning, organising volunteer work, etc. in the «Local Community Leader» playlist.
- 10 women have upgraded their competences in promoting themselves as experts and those they work with through workshop initiation and arrangement for other female participants in the «Women for Women» playlist.
- 30 women have on more than one occasion joined the events through social media ads or through other information channels.
One of the meetings of the participants of the first playlist program. Source: Zoom screenshot
What participants say:
“I learned an important principle: you can always say no without giving reasons. Although before, refusing to work, I could make excuses for a long time.” Stanislava, chairwoman of the YMCA council in Vitebsk.
“I remember the visual design workshop by Valeria Volkogonova. In literally an hour, she showed how without special skills you can make a visual worth a million.” Maria, works in an organization for the rights of people with disabilities in Germany.
“I finally felt a supportive environment where there are no wrong answers and criticism of ideas.” Olga, editor of Ecoidea.by and co-host of the FemFM podcast.
