AiW Next 50 Years

Education:

Establishing high-quality education programs on gender issues to encourage interest and build capacity at the undergraduate, graduate, and mid-career levels.

Over the next 50 years, The AiW is committed to:

• Establishing core knowledge and stimulating interest in gender issues at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
• Incorporating academic and practical applications of gender issues within the university where we strive to employ applied research, intellectual rigor, and social activism to promote gender equality.
• Building capacity to meet a pressing need for technical skills in development and humanitarian fields through the Certificate in Gender in Development and Humanitarian Assistance and other continuing education and mid-career professional technical assistance in partnership with the Academy of Continuing Education at LAU.
• Organizing high-caliber academic conferences and expert group meetings to bring top-tier academics, researchers, and activists working in the field of Gender Justice issues to LAU to encourage and support the development of the university’s academic community dedicated to gender equality and women’s rights.

Concrete actions under this pillar include:

1. Minor in Gender Studies & MA in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies

• Promote the minor and MA program to incoming students by presenting the AiW, its programs, and its work during LAU student orientation programs and during other campus events. The AiW will also work closely with the Department of Social Sciences to support the department’s recruitment methods.
• Support the development of gender-sensitive curricula for both the Minor and MA courses. This can take the form of one-on-one support sessions with faculty, organizing on-campus workshops for faculty and LAU staff on gender sensitivity and interdisciplinarity, and working with the LAU libraries to order new academic books published on issues related to gender and sexuality.
• Promote student engagement by continuing to offer semester-long internships with the AiW. The AiW will also offer students support when trying to identify promising internships with gender-focused civil society organizations, drawing from the AiW’s own professional networks.

2. Certificate in Gender and Development in Humanitarian Assistance (GDHA)

• The Institute’s primary goal in support of GDHA is to work to translate GDHA courses and course material into Arabic. The Institute has already started to work on this output with UN Women’s Arab Regional Office.
• The AiW plans to institutionalize GDHA course offerings at LAU.
• The AiW will develop more partnerships with regional organizations like UN Women to extend the reach of GDHA programming, which has been a need expressed by women’s rights and gender equality organizations across the region.
• The AiW will strive to monitor and support continuing education needs by creating more interactive tools and trainings to reach people, in line with the advanced technologies, with the ultimate aim to devise better ways to translate and disseminate learnings.

Research

Strengthening research on and by women and on gender issues in order to build a body of knowledge to further social change and policy change at national and regional levels.

Over the next 50 years, The AiW is committed to:

• Galvanizing research on gender and women in the Arab region by academics, activists, and students through Al-Raida, our pioneering Arab journal on gender issues, in publication since 1976—and now fully digitized at www.alraidajournal.com
• Addressing critical issues on gender and women’s rights through our Aqlam publishing series.
• Creating space and building a platform for Arab voices in global and regional discourses on Arab women and gender equality.

Concrete actions under this pillar include:

1. Al-Raida

• Al-Raida, the AiW’s biannual journal, is one of the organizations most important research products. To date, all of the journal’s issues are available for free online on the website www.alraidajournal.com. Over the next several years, the AiW plans to work with LAU’s Strategic Communications Department and the LAU libraries to host Al-Raida through an LAU web domain. Additionally, the LAU libraries repository will support Al-Raida to register with CrossRef in order to secure DOI numbers for all of Al-Raida’s publications.
• The AiW plans to begin publishing all articles in Al-Raida in Arabic. This will include hiring a translator to translate all of the journal’s past issues that have not been translated.

2. Women in the Labor Force: Updating the Original 1997 Study

• In 1997, the AiW published the first country-wide study of women’s labor force participation rates with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The AiW is currently in discussion with the LAU Adnan Kassar School of Business about redoing this study in the upcoming years.

3. Externally Funded Research

• The AiW plans to continue producing research products in collaboration with external donors. Past donors have included UNFPA, UN Women, UNESCWA, the Spanish Embassy, the Danish Embassy, the Global Women’s Institute at the George Washington University, and others.

4. “Who is She” Database

• The AiW aims to update the Who Is She in Lebanon Online Database. The AiW aims to update existing profiles by simplifying the template and promoting their work via social media and on the website, on a rotating basis, to extend the reach of the platform. Additionally, the AiW will convene a meeting of the Who is She countries in the region in order to strengthen connections and share ideas—and perhaps to jointly seek funding—for future programming related to “Who is She,” and to find ways to link “Who is She” in other Arab Countries.

5. Women in Time Documentary Film, Part 2

• The AiW plans to work on developing Women in Time part 2 which covers the period between 1975-present.

Development Projects

Conducting sustainable development projects to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls at national and regional levels.

Over the next 50 years, The AiW is committed to:

1. Guide for Working with Women in Prisons: Updating the Original Workbook

•  The AiW aims to update its original guide on working with women in prisons, which was published in 2011.

2. Developing Educational Tools for Girls

• Given AiW’s history in creating educational books, it is important to revive this experience and to make these books more relevant to contemporary social settings. AiW plans to create a proposal that will enable the creation of a package of tools for young girls in Arabic for use in the Arab world. The purpose of these tools is to address issues of healthy sexuality and disseminate messages for prevention of sexual violence. The goal of these tools is to promote girls’ agency and enhance their ability to protect themselves, to prevent cases of sexual violence, and to report cases to adults who will act in the best interests of the child. The target population is existing populations in Lebanon: Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi. These books intend to serve not only host populations but also the increasing refugee population.
• The books will include the following: 5 educational books, each covering one key message (Messages may include: consent, saying no, bodily integrity, getting help, safety, and so on); Songs for children including prevention messages; Games and/or children’s workbook summarizing prevention messages; Guidebook for parents/caretakers on how to talk to children about healthy sexuality, prevention of sexual violence, and safety, including info on referral mechanisms, laws, etc. in case a child is abused; and a training book for educators on how to integrate lessons/discussions on prevention in classrooms and school settings.

3. Increasing the Capacity of Gender-based Violence Research in the Region

• Based on its recent work with the Global Women’s Institute at the George Washington University, the AiW plans to expand its available skills-strengthening courses, such as GDHA, to other countries around the region with the aim to support gender staff and professionals in the region.

4. Supporting Women’s Political Participation in Lebanon and Beyond

• Based on the AiW’s recent work with UN Women, the AiW plans to continue producing research on women’s experiences during electoral cycles and the gender-based violence women candidates commonly face during elections.
• The AiW is committed to working with different political consortia to promote women’s political empowerment, such as the National Commission for Lebanese Women (NCLW).

Outreach

Promoting gender equality, human rights, and social justice through outreach events and activities at national, regional, and international levels.

Over the next 50 years, The AiW is committed to:

1. Updating the AiW Website

• The AiW will update its website to make it more accessible and user friendly.
• The AiW’s updated website will include a link to the LAU library and specifically, the Julinda Abu Nasr Women and Gender Collection.
• The AiW will also work to create space on the updated website where the AiW’s Tweets and Instagram posts, as well as other social media posts, can be seen in real-time by website visitors.
• The AiW will also create an online chat space for gender discussions in education curricula (between LAU and other universities in Lebanon and abroad).

2. Launch an AiW Newsletter

• The AiW plans to launch an online quarterly newsletter that will include news of AiW’s activities and projects.

3. Suad Joseph Distinguished Lecture Series

• The AiW is committed to continuing the Suad Joseph Distinguished Lecture Series.
• The annual lecture series will bring top-tier gender experts to the LAU to deliver a lecture on a key topic in the field of gender equality and women’s rights in the region and globally.

4. The AiW Annual Report

• The AiW will continue to produce its annual report to document the outputs of the Institute.

LAU Engagement

Engaging LAU students, faculty and staff, and integrating the LAU community in the work of the Institute to enhance a university culture committed to gender equality and human rights.

Over the next 50 years, The AiW is committed to:

1. Food 4 Thought (F4T) Speaking Series

• The AiW will continue to deliver and produce its monthly speaking series, Food 4 Thought. We will keep on engaging new speakers, inviting students to suggest topics, doing online live versions, recording the sessions and posting them on YouTube. The AiW will also use the F4T as a learning tool that professors might use within the context of their classrooms.

2. Mary Turner Lane Award

• The AiW will continue to give the Mary Turner Lane Award to one exemplary undergraduate student paper and one exemplary graduate student paper per semester.

3. LAU Title IX Office

• The AiW will continue to support and promote the LAU Title IX Office, namely through co-organizing joint events and trainings for the LAU community and the students specifically.

4. Academic Steering Committee

• The AiW plans to establish a steering committee to replace the Gender Liaison Committee. The committee will include faculty members to ensure representation across all LAU schools and departments. It needs to meet regularly and have a clear mandate. The Institute is looking at ways to work across all departments and therefore needs the support of this committee to remain informed of courses, events, activities relevant to gender issues and women’s studies. All of this will be put into place by January 2023 - starting with a preliminary restructure meeting in December 2022.