YWCA reps attend Myanmar leadership training

TWO officials of the Young Women’s Christian Association of PNG are attending a week-long leadership training in Myanmar that started last Sunday and will end on Friday.
Representatives from nine Asia-Pacific countries are attending the training.  These countries are India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, PNG, Samoa and Solomon Islands.
YWCA of PNG Rise Up programme coordinator Naomi Woyengu, who is attending with YWCA president Antonia Manau, said they would be creating a global manual mostly from the success of the Rise Up programme in PNG.
Woyengu told The National the programme adopted from the Solomon Islands YWCA in 2010 was aimed at encouraging women to be the centre of decision-making and knowing their rights as women in a community, province and country.
“We see the need that young women must be part of decision-making as well so the whole programme is about unleashing that leadership skill they have,” she said.
“They can be agents of change. It doesn’t mean they will become politicians but can make good decisions at home.”
She said the training covered key areas such as human rights, women’s rights, gender, leadership and public speaking and it was adaptable to any group, community or institution.
Woyengu said they recently added culture and tradition, sexual reproductive health and rights and climate change to help meet the needs of women in different communities.
“Under gender we go into looking more on violence against women and sorcery related violence and gender-based violence,” she said.
“It was exciting to have inputs of the Rise Up programme incorporated into a global manual for all member countries of YWCA to use.”