Women's life: Call for data gathering tours to the Caucasus and the Balkans

Karat Coalition, the regional network of women's NGOs from Central Asia and Eastern Europe, carries out the project co-financed by the European Commission „Through their eyes, through ours. Raising public awareness about development problems faced by women from developing countries in the EU Eastern Neighbourhood, Balkans and Central Asia."

In the first part of the project, KARAT had announced a photo competition for women from Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The subject of the photos was the socio-economic situation from their perspective. The collected photos now form the photo exhibition “Through their eyes” which has been presented so far in Poland, Slovakia, Germany and will soon be shown in Belgium.

In the second part of the project, Karat is asking citizens of new EU member states (NMS) to express their opinion about women’s lives in the Balkans and the Caucasus. They can chose between producing different awareness raising tools (like photos, movies on YouTube, articles). In order to help applicants to collect data for their material, Karat announced a call for data gathering tours for women from NMS (except for Cyprus and Malta). Successful applicants will travel to countries in the Balkans and the Caucasus.

There are still a lot of stereotypes existing about these regions and there is a lack of reliable and solid information. The awareness raising material which will be produced as a result of the trips should be innovative, attractive and easy to disseminate in Europe. It will be used to draw attention to these countries which still suffer from the consequences of political and economical transformation and need support from developed countries. The aim of the project is to share the knowledge about the socio-economic situation of women in the Balkans and the Caucasus within EU countries and to explain how important it is for the development of the whole region to respect women’s rights, especially those related to the participation in economy. "We hope that in the long term more development projects with a gender focus will target the countries of Central Asia and Eastern Europe", says Ewa Pintera from Karat Coalition.

Applications for data gathering tours are possible by October 15, 2009. The call is available at: http://www.karat.org/karat,6,13,en.html. For more information please contact: ewa.pintera@karat.org.pl

Information provided by Ewa Pintera, Karat Coalition