The course started 28 January and has 21 participants. 18 of the participants are from the Region; Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia Herzegovina, and 4 of the participants are from UK, Sweden and France.
The course is hosted by Peacekeeping Operations Center in Belgrade and is organized in cooperation with UNDP SEESAC.
The aim of the course is to prepare instructors and trainers to effectively plan, conduct and evaluate education, training and exercises for troops, units, and staff and to be able to integrate a gender perspective in this activity.
The Staff and Syndicate leaders have been educated at previous GToT courses arranged in the region or at NCGMs home base at SWDINT/Life Guard Regiment in Stockholm.
“It is so interesting for us to see previous students from former GToT courses working together, and I am impressed of the activity that the trainers from the region have done to increase gender awareness in the military through delivering seminars and training on gender in their respective institutions” Course Director LtCol Grethe Stensland representing NCGM says in a comment.
”The network of gender trainers has been holding regular meetings to review their work and progress and they have all worked proactively to raise gender awareness in their institutions. This was done either though lectures, workshops and training. Some of them also provided practical solutions to integrate a gender perspective in training and education, Human Recourses Management and Operational planning, and as such have been recognized as Subject Matter Experts.” says Bojana Balon that is the Program Officer at UNDP SEESAC.
The GToT course is conducting training for different levels with a variety of training audiences. It is a “hands on “course and the students are involved in the course from the first day by making presentations and solving case studies during syndicate work.
Through lectures and case studies the students uses their knowledge and own experiences on how to implement a gender perspective. This is an interesting learning process, because many of our students have been working with training without realizing the already existing gender elements
CDR Jan Dunmurray: “Today I listened to some of the course participants’ individual presentations, and was impressed how they succeeded to add gender perspective into lectures and training models tailor-made to a Training Audience that they will meet when leaving this course back to their home units and ordinary work. That is the evidence to me that the course concept is really working. When a young platoon commander make a training program specifically for his soldiers to improve his platoon operational effect, on their tactical level, through a better understanding and ability to integrate a gender perspective into their ordinary daily tasks and duties, it tells a lot to me. The participants mature and open minds along with their eagerness to learn about gender is the foundation to actually implement gender perspective as one new tool in their operational toolbox.”
The next METT GToT course will be arranged in Croatia from 20 to 29 May 2015, and NCGM will conduct the next GToT at SWEDINT 11 to 20 November 2015.