Thank you for your interest in the 5-day course. Based on your feedback, we have decided at this time to offer this course as a 3-day training instead A 5-day course will be announced at a later date.
Click here to view the 3-day course and to register.
Thank you and we look forward to seeing you in December.
Gender Equality & Women, Peace and Security in Peace & Security Missions
To be announced
Ottawa, Canada
The WPS Group, in collaboration with GAIC Gender Associations International Consulting GmbH, is launching a 5 day comprehensive training on advancing gender equality and implementing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in peace and security missions. This is an exciting new offering and the first of its kind in Canada.
The course aims to deepen practitioners' understanding of gender equality concepts and provide them with the tools to implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda in conflict and post-conflict contexts. The course uses adult-based learning methodology, combining theory and practice to maximize learning.
With this course, you will gain:
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A more in-depth understanding of the importance of gender equality and the WPS agenda when working in conflict and post-conflict environments.
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Specific skills and tools to conduct gendered conflict analysis and advocate for gender-responsive programming.
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Practical experience related to gender mainstreaming and the application of the WPS agenda in conflict and post-conflict settings.
General criteria and information are included below:
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE
This course is designed for civilian, police and military personnel looking to deepen their knowledge of gender equality and the WPS agenda, and acquire specific skills and tools for advocating for gender equality and advancing WPS while participating in or supporting peace and security missions.
This course can be taken as pre-deployment training or to supplement induction and in-mission training. This course can also be valuable for headquarters staff working on gender equality and WPS, as well as those overseeing programming in conflict and post-conflict environments.
FEES & EARLY BIRD OPTION
We are excited to offer a new fee structure as follows (all taxes and fees included):
Early bird pricing - until November 8, 2019:
- Course only: $1,550.00
- Course & 5 days accommodation: $2,400.00
Regular pricing - November 9 to 18, 2019:
- Course only: $1,750.00
- Course & 5 days accommodation: $2,600.00
Fess are due immediately upon registering to secure your spot. Deadline for registering is November 18, 2019.
Included in the program fee:
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5 days of intensive targeted education focused on knowledge enhancement and the application of new skills, including 1 day of scenario-based learning "in the field,"
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specific tools to help you gain confidence and strengthen your gender expertise,
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all course materials including USB key with additional resources,
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6 months of 1:1 mentoring and ongoing support with our team of experts,
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access to a large community of gender & WPS experts,
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daily lunch, refreshments and snacks + Thursday night dinner outing in Ottawa,
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certificate of completion from The WPS Group and GAIC.
For those choosing the course + accommodation option, you will be staying at the Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Ottawa Kanata. Included in your stay is the following:
· Hot Breakfast
· WIFI /Internet
· Parking
· Mini Fridge, Microwave
· Access to Pool and 24hrs Fitness Centre
A shuttle will also be available to take participants to and from the hotel to the training site in the morning and evening.
We have a number of partial grants available (for program fee or travel). We are committed to providing financial assistance where we can to those who need it.
Please get in touch if you would like to discuss group rates.
LOCATION
The program takes place at the Bonnenfant Y Outdoor Education and Leadership Centre, located at 1620 Sixth Line Road in Dunrobin, 15 minutes northwest of Kanata and about 30 minutes northwest of Downtown Ottawa
APPLICATION DEADLINE: NOVEMBER 18, 2019 at 5:00pm EST
Spots are limited to 24 participants to ensure maximized learning experience. Only complete applications will be considered. If you have any questions, please contact us here.
PROGRAM DETAILS
The course will be delivered over 5 days using adult learning methodology. The course will be facilitated by a team of gender experts with specific expertise in international operations. Participants will have the opportunity to hear first hand from Canadian police, military and civilians who have deployed as gender advisers to missions in Iraq, Ukraine, DRC and Haiti (more to be confirmed), as well as civil society practitioners working on women's rights and WPS. Finally, participants will also undertake a full day field exercise (Thursday) where they will be asked to apply their new knowledge to real-life peacekeeping and security sector reform scenarios.
Below is an overview of the modules (subject to change):
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Module 1: A gender perspective on peace and security operations
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Module 2: Understanding the regulatory framework for gender equality, WPS and SGBV
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Module 3: Unconscious bias & ethics
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Module 4: Designing Gender-responsive policies & programming (incl. gender & intersectional analysis)
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Module 5: Gendered community approaches
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Module 6: Mentoring & Advising
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Module 7: Sexual Misconduct & SEA
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Module 8: Transformative Leadership & Communication
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Module 9: Stress, Mindfulness & Resilience
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Module 10: Resistance, Negotiation & Advocacy
FACILITATORS & PANELLISTS (more to be announced in coming weeks)
Kristine St-Pierre
Course Director & Lead Facilitator
Nicola Popovic
Course Co-Director & Lead Facilitator
Carole Doucet
Course Adviser & Facilitator
Kristine St-Pierre is a gender equality and women, peace and security adviser, researcher and trainer with specific expertise in peacekeeping and security sector reform. She has worked with international and Canadian organizations, government and academic institutions setting the groundwork for gender audits, advising on gender mainstreaming within programmes and policies, developing organization-wide gender equality and mainstreaming strategies, and developing and delivering training on gender equality and WPS. She has worked in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and more recently in Ukraine where she supported the creation and launch of the Ukrainian Association of Women in Law Enforcement and facilitated the development of the Patrol Police Academy’s first gender mainstreaming strategy.
Nicola Popovic has mainly focused on issues such as the implementation of UNSCR 1325, international law at the domestic and regional level, on gender sensitive security sector reform and on the prevention and response to sexual and gender based violence in peacekeeping missions. She holds a Master (LLM) in International Peace Support Operations, as well as a degree in political, social and communication science. She has lived and worked in Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and South- and West Africa. She has developed, implemented and evaluated training programmes, action oriented research, project as well as policy development processes for the United Nations, different governments and NGOs. She is the co-founder and director of Gender Associations International Consulting, a consultancy firm that focuses on capacity enhancement, policy development and action oriented research through a global network of experts on gender, peace and security.
Carole Doucet is an international policy adviser, researcher, trainer, evaluator and advocate with subject matter expertise in women’s rights, gender, peace and security. She has advised both governments (especially in Africa) and international organizations, including but not limited to UN Women, NATO, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the UN Department of Political Affairs, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre, and multiple civil society and women’s organizations. Ms Doucet has served as the senior gender advisor for the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Liberia (2008-2011), the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York (2013-2015), and the Office of the UN Special Envoy for the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Great Lakes region (2016-2017). She has most recently finished a consultancy for NATO, helping the Alliance work on their WPS action plan and their performance indicators. Carole has recently finished a position as Director of the Conduct and Discipline Team with the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or MONUSCO. Based in Goma, Ms Doucet’s mandate was to advise senior leadership on the application of UN standards of conduct in the Mission including the Zero Tolerance Policy on sexual exploitation and abuse.
Sylvia de Sousa
Police Adviser & Facilitator
Sylvia de Sousa, Sergeant, has worked in the Canadian Police Mission in Ukraine since June 2018 and is currently the Gender Adviser providing training for the National Police of Ukraine in the area of sexual and gender-based violence. Prior to arriving in Ukraine, Sylvia worked as a United Nations peacekeeper/gender adviser for the mission in Haiti and as an international trainer for the UN Department of Peacekeeping train the trainer courses in the area of prevention and investigation of sexual and gender-based violence. Sylvia is a contract instructor on protection of civilians at the Center of Excellence of Police Stability Units (Vicenza, Italy) and is in her 27th year of service for the Montreal City Police Department. She holds a Masters degree in Sociology.
Rehana Hashmi
Presenter
Rehana Hashmi is a development professional and human rights defender from Pakistan. At a young age Hashmi saw her father jailed for political activism and soon followed in his footsteps, leading student protests as Pakistan went through political upheaval. When the police came to her door threatening her arrest, the teenage Hashmi was given two choices: stop the protests or leave town. But she would not be silenced. In the 25 years since, Hashmi’s activism has centered on the defense of human rights, especially for women. She became a development specialist in the district of Chitral; the work involved organizing women of diverse sects to come together to improve their livelihoods. It was a challenging task, as women in this region had never before been allowed to form organizations or make decisions side by side with men. Hashmi has also created two national networks to support women taking control of their rights. As the national manager of the Women Political School Project under the Ministry of Women Development, she trained over 25,000 elected women leaders to support their political engagement. Hashmi also formed the largest health worker’s network in the private sector to provide services in reproductive health, linking over 3,000 paramedics to reach 2 million women.
Rasha Jarhum
Presenter
Rasha Jarhum is a South Yemeni. Jarhum is co-founder and Director of the Peace Track Initiative, hosted at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre, at Ottawa University. She is a Gender, Peace, and Security Expert. She has more than 15 years’ experience working to advocate women’s, children’s and refugees’ rights with many organisations including UNICEF, ESCWA, UNDP, and JICA, in Yemen and the Middle East and North Africa region. She held the position of Regional MENA Gender and Advocacy Manager at Oxfam Regional Gender Justice Programme. Jarhum was invited among seven women by the UN Special Envoy to Yemen to support the peace talks held in Kuwait in 2016 and has briefed the UN Security Council on Yemen and Women’s Rights to push for peace. Jarhum is an award winner of the Women Have Wings Award (2016) and Women Rebels Against War: Anita Augspurg Prize (2019). She is also a founding member of the Women Solidarity Network in Yemen, a founding member for the MENA1325 Network, and a member of the MENA regional Coalition of Women Human Rights Defenders and member of the Women, Peace, and Security Network- Canada. Twitter: @RashaJarhum
Isobel Granger
Presenter
In March of 2018, Isobel Granger was promoted to the rank of Inspector. She is the first black woman to rise to this level within the Ottawa Police Service. Insp. Granger says she wants her achievement to inspire other women from marginalized communities to do the same. Insp. Granger began her policing career in her home country of Zimbabwe where she was the first black officer in the white ranks of a
segregated police force. After leaving Zimbabwe, she became one of the first black female officers hired by the Ottawa Police Service. She has worked closely with the diversity and race relations unit as well as the youth section. She says “What I learned about people is that people are sometimes really intimidated and afraid of what they do not know, so you can actually stand up and fight and become adversarial and combative, or your life can become a life of educating people.”
Janie Desjardins
Course Adviser
Janie Desjardins is a facilitator with experience in research, analysis and training development in the field of intelligence regarding the human and informational environment, women, peace and security, peacekeeping, security sector reform, civil-military relation and civil-military interaction. Prior to being a facilitator, Janie was an infantry officer of the Canadian Forces Primary Reserve from 1990 to 2017. She was deployed in operations 8 times between 2002 and 2017 as an officer of civil-military cooperation and psychological operations officer in Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Haiti, Nepal and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She is particularly interested by the integration of gender and intersectionality in conflict analysis, in development of course of actions and in design of communication campaign. While in Haiti and South Sudan she supported the development and operationalization of the military gender and protection of civilian focal points concepts. She retired from Canadian Forces in November 2017 and now own an information operation company called J.D. Peace Strategies center (www.jdpeacestrategies.com)
ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS
1. I am coming from out of town. Where can I stay?
The training will take place at the Bonnenfant Y Outdoor Education and Leadership Centre, located at 1620 Sixth Line Road in
Dunrobin, 15 minutes northwest of Kanata and about 30 minutes northwest of Downtown Ottawa. If you are coming from out of town, we have secured a special rate with Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Ottawa Kanata. Included in your stay is the following:
· Hot Breakfast
· FREE WIFI /Internet
· Parking
· Mini Fridge, Microwave
· Access to Pool and 24hrs Fitness Centre
The hotel is also located close to restaurants and shopping.
2. I will be staying at the hotel above. Will there be a shuttle available taking us to the Leadership Centre?
Yes! If you are staying at the hotel, one to two shuttle vehicles will be available to pick you up in the morning and drop you off in the evening. If you plan on driving, the Leadership Centre has ample free parking on site.
3. I am a young professional or student studying/working in the field of gender equality and international peace and security. Can I attend the course and do you have special rates for students?
Yes, each course has up to 4 spots reserved specifically for students or young professional (1-3 years experience) at a reduced rate! Please email us at info [at] thewpsgroup [dot] com to discuss your participation.
4. Will taking this course help me get a job as a gender adviser?
While we cannot guarantee that this course will lend you a job as a gender adviser, what we can guarantee is that the course will provide you with critical knowledge and understanding of what it means to consider gender perspectives and to implement the women, peace and security agenda as part of your everyday tasks in a mission environment - from a policing, military and civilian perspective. It is important to view gender as a competence, and as such, this course will provide you with greater understanding to do your job well and with confidence.
5. I've never been to Ottawa and I hear it's cold in December! What should I bring for clothing?
Yes, Ottawa can be cold in December, but it's also extremely beautiful! Definitely bring warm clothing, a good winter jacket (including hat, scarf and gloves), and warm boots. If weather permits part of our field exercise will take place outside. In addition, all participants are invited to an outing to Downtown Ottawa on Thursday night. For the course, attire should be business casual/ comfortable.
6. I registered for the course, but can no longer attend. Can I get a refund?
Refunds (minus processing fee) will be provided prior to October 31st, after which we will provide fifty percent (minus processing fee). That said, you are free to transfer your ticket to someone else, or differ your participation at a later date. If you have any questions, please get in touch!
Got more questions? Don't hesitate to get in touch by emailing us here.