The National Committee for the Follow-Up on Women’s Issues (CFUWI) launched its training sessions on gender awareness in schoolbooks for elementary classes in Arabic reading and civic education. These sessions fall within a project funded by the European Union and managed by OMSAR, and are organized in collaboration with the Educational Center for Research and Development.

The first 2-day training session was held on 13-14 July 2007 at the Bellevue Hotel in Brummana. As she read the speech of CFUWI president Dr. Aman Kabbara Shaarani, Mrs. Mouna Ibrahim highlighted CFUWI’s concern in the teaching process and its role in imparting social education. After mentioning AFKAR I, which involved two training sessions for teachers in 2006, she explained that AFKAR II in 2007 will include six training sessions for trainers at the Educational Center as well as two sessions for complementary section teachers and coordinators. She added that these projects aim at replacing the negative image of women with a positive one, making an impact on beliefs, notions and future choices, and activating the role of schoolbooks in shaping concepts and behavioral patterns towards women.
As for the president of the Educational Center for Research and Development, Dr. Layla Maliha Fayad, she assured participants that she gave directives to the new committees for gender awareness, non-discrimination of any kind, and stressing on human values and qualities. She also gave directives to the continuous training team to work with the trainee teachers and search for any flaws in the books and remove them.    
                          

                                                     


The second 2-day training session was held on 20-21 July 2007 at the Bellevue Hotel in Brummana. In her speech, CFUWI president Dr. Aman Kabbara Shaarani paid tribute to the collaboration with the Educational Center and stressed on the importance of gender reading and pinpointing any flaws related to pictures, drawings, language, or roles, in view of implementing amendments for the better.    
Then AFKAR program coordinator Youmna Chacar Ghorayeb paid tribute to CFUWI’s work and considered its partnership with the Educational Center to be a great step forward for CFUWI’s project, which was launched in AFKAR I. She also pointed that this partnership is a measure for the success and concretization of the project’s different steps.
Furthermore, the head of the training department at the Educational Center, Mr. Nizar Gharib, emphasized the importance of these training sessions and of the partnership between CFUWI and the Educational Center.

With these two training sessions, 60 out of the 150 expected trainees would have received training.