Empowering Education Manual

Through trainings and other activities, the Empowering Education program, led by the Women’s Information and Consultative Center (WICC) in Ukraine, promotes awareness about women’s human rights and gender equality by integrating new gender sensitive teaching models and methods into educational systems in the countries where it operates (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan). The pedagogy of Empowering Education is based on both theory and the practice of everyday life and includes offering concepts, definitions, and models; supporting those who teach through the exchange of information and experience; and creating opportunity for reflections and discussions.

In 2002 and 2003, Empowering Education began drawing the interest of teachers and NGO representatives from some countries outside of the former Soviet Union. Trainings were subsequently conducted with Burmese diaspora working in Thailand border areas, and with Indonesian activists and Afghani educators. In 2001, the Ukrainian Ministry of Education officially licensed WICC to conduct courses on Empowering Education pedagogy to raise teachers’ qualifications in the area of innovative teaching methods. The introduction and active implementation of such teaching methods into institutions for teacher qualification improvement represents a significant step in “humanizing” the educational system.