Ramallah- Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD) won Al-Manara Award for Gender Equality which focuses on three fields of Gender Equality. PWWSD has competed with several organizations on “Women as active citizens – capacity development for decisions-making” and has got the first place in Women Shadow Councils in local government. The initiative focuses on empowering women to take part in political, community, and developmental fields as well as enhancing their leadership roles in the marginalized areas (surrounded by Israeli settlements and the apartheid wall). This is in addition to support elected women, taking into account that there are only two seats for women in the quota as well as monitoring and supporting the work of the shadow councils in terms of gender sensitivity. The participation process is basically a phase of continuous training to hone the leadership skills, in addition to play the role of an elected member for a period of time “shadowing”. The indicator of the initiative is: The involvement of numerous numbers of women members of the shadow councils in the local governance elections conducted in 2012 has increased. We expect to increase the participation of women in the coming local elections in 2017.
PWWSD dedicates its success to women in the Shadow Council and women activists in gender issues in order to enhance the political participation and deepen the democracy in Palestine. This continued work reflects the political will of women taking into consideration that it has become the model for various civil society organizations at local and regional levels.
We are looking forward to increasing women participation in organization, mobilization, capacity-building activities, and enhancing the political participation in the upcoming election which will be conducted in the local government at the end of this year.