WOMED: the “next generation of leaders”
The project targets young women with high potential from the Southern Mediterranean countries in order to strengthen their leadership skills through an intensive training programme on issues of gender equality.
WoMED – Women of the Mediterranean: Next Generation of Leaders is an innovative high-level training programme on women empowerment and gender equality conducted by Sciences Po from 2015-2017 with the support of the French Ministry of European and Foreign affairs, the French Ministry of Women Rights and the Interministerial delegation for the Mediterranean.
The project aimed to strengthen the capacities of high-potential young women aged between 25 and 35 years old and from the Southern Mediterranean countries, by enhancing their professional and personal skills. It also sought to develop a Euro-Mediterranean network for the promotion of gender equality. For three successive years, 62 women aged 25 to 35 years old, coming from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Turkey or Tunisia, pursued a two-week intensive training programme on leadership and gender equality, with a two fold objective : to disseminate gender equality principles in the Mediterranean region and how to be part of a lively leading women network. The training programme adopted a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach – including economics, law, philosophy, political science, sociology, history, psychology etc. – to gender issues.
The WoMED project was labelled by the 43 member countries of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) on 24 May 2015 in Amman, and it contributes to the implementation of the UfM Ministerial Declarations on Strengthening the Role of Women in Society and is part of the UfM Secretariat’s global strategy to promote concrete projects for women empowerment and gender equality in the Euro-Mediterranean region.
Find more information about the project here: http://blogs.sciences-po.fr/womed/
The story of Lina Khalifeh: Empowering Women Through Self-Defence
A former student of the WOMED project, Lina Khalifeh, a Jordanian who has a black belt in Taekwondo, founded SheFighter in 2010, the first self-defense studio of its kind in the Middle East. She was eager to have an impact on a million women in the Middle-East and up until now, 12 000 women have benefited from her formation. Over the past several years, she has received many distinctions like the First Award of the international competition for “Women in Business” from the United Nations.
About the promoter and partner institutions
The project is promoted by Sciences Po Paris, an international research university located in Paris (France), in close collaboration with the UfM Secretariat and supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development and Ministry of Social Affairs, Health and Women's Rights.
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