| |
STRUGGLING FOR OUR RIGHTS - END DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN NOW. NO EXCUSES, NO ABUSES, NO APOLOGIES - WE WANT ACTION NOW!!!
Goals of the Women`s Issues Information Centre:
• seek equal rights and opportunities for women and men in Lithuania
• improve women's position in social and private lives
• develop gender equality environment
Main streamlines of WIIC activities:
• Gender mainstreaming
• Violence against women
• Trafficking in women
• Gender budgeting initiatives
• Women & ICT
The Women`s Issues Information Centre:
• exchange information with all non-governmental women’s organizations in Lithuania and the world
• promote gender equality through everyday activities
• promote a teamwork in fighting violence against women
• initiate awareness campaigns against gender based violence, trafficking in women
• take part in developing various programmes aimed at improving women’s life
• issue and distribute various publications about the situation of women in Lithuania and in the world
• maintain links with the mass media in an effort to disseminate information about the real situation of women and their problems
• organise conferences on issues relevant for women, seminars for women and civil servants
• initiate sociological surveys give lectures on issues of gender equality, gender mainstreaming, women’s leadership, women’s health
The Women's Issues Information Centre (WIIC) celebrates its 10 years aniversary!!! It was established in April 1996, after the completion of activities by the Secretariat of the Lithuanian Preparatory Committee for the UN Fourth World Conference on Women. The Centre assists in implementing the Action Plan of Advancement of Women of Lithuania. The WIIC is a registered non-governmental organisation and is supported by the United Nations Development Programme in Lithuania (project No. LIT/96/002). The need for WIIC arose out of responses that there was no single organisation to act as an umbrella organisation to collate and represent women's issues in a coordinated and sustained manner. The Centre works in partnership with other women's NGOs, government sector and international agencies to develop a gender perspective on all aspects of women's lives and ensure that women's perspective is represented in developmental programmes, as well as in the policies and legislative social and welfare reforms. However, our main brief remains one of gender awareness, educating and information provider within the national context of Lithuanian society through publishing material that can be easily accessed and make accessible.
The WIIC acts as a focal point on the pulse of women's issues in Lithuanian society, by acting as a catalyst on the most pressing problems facing women in the transitional post communist stage. Decentralising power towards a free democratic civil society has had profound changes in the way gender is socially constructed and maintained, in many ways rights that women should be entitled to somehow pushed back in the political machinery, instead of ensuring their full emancipation at this pivotal stage. Hence, WIIC plays a key role in ensuring that women's issues remain at the forefront of political, social and economical changes in which women become 'visible'. In particular, we are keen to see the implementation of the 'Action Plan for the Advancement of Women in Lithuania' in which women play a central role in politics and the decision making processes, which has a direct impact and influence on their lives.
The Centre has an extensive network of contacts with women's organisations, women's NGO's within Lithuania, its Baltic's neighbors, and some Eastern European countries highlighting problems on abuses and problems of women, to present a united front, share strategies on intervention, organise joint conferences and campaigns, disseminate and share information, etc.
The Centre initiates research studies and conducts statistical surveys. Over the last two years we have found the problem of domestic violence to be particularly acute in Lithuania society and have published material that analyses why violence is so predominate against women within the familial domain. We are also trying to be built a data bank in collaboration with the Department of Statistics, with a particular emphasis on gender and social research, which so far has been 'invisible' on profiles of women in various demographic trends such as unemployment, women entrepreneurs, education, marriage and divorce patterns, single parents, child bearing trends, etc.
All these activities will be conducted in coherence with implementation of the Action Plan for the Advancement of Women of Lithuania. The WIIC will assist the Government in any activity in connection with the implementation of the Action Plan. The project "Women's Leadership Training in the Baltics" started in July 1998 and will last until July 2000. The project will be executed by the Center for Russian, Central and East European Studies (CRCEES) at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. It will be implemented in cooperation with the Women's Issues Information Centre in Lithuania, the Center of Gender Studies, University of Latvia, and the Voru Rural People's Resource Center in Estonia. The goal of the project is to increase the ability of women's NGOs to influence community priorities and policies. It will train 15 trainers (5 from each Baltic country) who will train selected representatives of NGOs in their home-countries the leadership skills and knowledge required for active participation in public policy formation and decision-making processes.
According to the research of Lithuanian division of “Transparency international” carried out in 2007, WIIC was chosen as one of the most transparent NGO’s in Lithuania by people, who interacted with the organization. Read more >>
Adress:
Olandų 19-2, Lt- 01100 Vilnius, Lithuania
Our staff:
Jurate Seduikiene Director
Jurgita Peciuriene Projects' coordinator
Dovile Rukaite Projects' coordinator
Dovile Petrauskaite Projects' coordinator/Lawyer
Rugile Butkeviciute Projects' coordinator/Lawyer
Liucija Popovic Financial manager
Women Information Portal: www.lygus.lt/ITC/
Web page: www.lygus.lt
|
