On September 17-20, Chernihiv hosted a training school “1325: Women. Peace. Security Training for IDP leaders” within the framework of the “I am Media” project, which aimed to acquaint young people more deeply with the mechanisms and problems of implementation of this important UN Security Council resolution in Ukraine’s realities.

During the first training day, participants of the human rights program for community leaders from SSU and Chernihiv Polytechnic National University got acquainted with each other, developed common rules of interaction, learned to build safe communication, feel other people’s boundaries, look for common ground that should be considered when building constructive dialogue and better mutual understanding, shared their views on the importance for each of the issues of peace and security raised in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 “Women. Peace. Security” .

The second day of the Training School began with gathering participants to complete group tasks received in a telegram chat, reflect on the insights of the 1st day of training, develop cooperation arrangements in the training space and identify key issues of UNSCR 1325 for joint discussion. Then the participants were given team tasks describing conflict situations in the gender sphere and played them in the format of a forum-theater, demonstrating both their understanding of the situation and a common vision of possible ways to resolve the conflict. It was the theatrical form that helped us see how often instead of finding a compromise we exacerbate the situation to the conflict, not understanding how to find common ground. Thanks to such interactive exercises, the participants of the training better understood the hidden part of the iceberg “I am identity” and how to take it into account when building conflict-free social relations.

The third training day was dedicated to the topic of blogging in the digital age. Participants were able to reflect on the moral and ethical principles of modern blogging, discuss the specifics of writing and visual content, practice using modern video blogger tools, work in teams to create their own video blog, and share their video blogging experiences and inspire other participants to start creating blogs.

The fourth, last day was devoted to the integration of knowledge and skills acquired in the previous days and the development of their own vision of the implementation of the main provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 “Women. Peace. Security”. Participants shared in an open group Facebook Youth Movement- I am MEDIA (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2843989252579551) their impressions of the school-training, experiences, insights, as well as interesting posts and creative video content. It was an exciting experience of collaboration and networking. Thanks to all participants for their fruitful work, exchange of experiences and emotions. We are waiting for the next School-training within the project “I am Media”, which will take place on September 24-27.

The project is implemented by Chernihiv Polytechnic National University in cooperation with the Human Rights Foundation and the University of Tartu (Estonia).

The project is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia.