Nowadays Civil Society Organizations and in particular women’s organizations are experiencing “shrinking spaces” expressed via antidemocratic and antifeminist activities. Based upon this, Women’s Fund Georgia, Ukrainian Women’s Fund, Women’s Fund Armenia (Women’s Resource Center Armenia) and filia Germany are carrying out the joint (collaborative) project “grassroot women mobilise together for democracy”.
The project is financed by Filia the women’s fund
and German Federal Foreign Office.
The purpose of this project is to develop a strategy that brings us from threats to tactics of feminist empowerment: developing messages for a media campaign and learn how to come from a complex problem to a concise and empowering message.
Two women organizations from Armenia are already working on their projects. These are “Socioscope” Societal Research and Consultancy NGO and Human Rights Research Center” (HRRC) NGO.
“Socioscope” NGO in the framework of the project is conducting the “Contemporary Armenian Society and Sexuality: Narratives, the Local Political Context through the Lens of Conspiracy Theories” research, which aims at studying the existing narratives of sexuality in contemporary Armenian society. The objectives of the project are:
- Collect the existing narratives on sexuality in the contemporary Armenian society and
analyze the existing discourses used to discredit the work of women human rights
defenders and civil society activists. - Study the issues of sexuality in the local Armenian political context through the lens of similar movements internationally and conspiracy theories.
“HRRC” NGO is carrying out a research named “Speaking about human rights protection and activism: experiences of women in Armenia“ the aim of which is to present the experiences of women who work for the advancement of the agenda of women’s liberation, protection of the rights of women, fight against gender-based violence and discriminationthrough collection of human stories and identification and mapping of anti-gender messages through the interviews with the mentioned group. Within the project biographical interviews of women activist are conducted in order to reveal the forms of manifestation of the societal atmosphere around gender issues and women’s agenda within their personal experiences.
