YWIL March 2020 (Trinidad)
Leadership Workshop
The first two days of YWiLTT (March 5 & 6, 2020) were dedicated to leadership training and preparation for the YWiL Parliamentary Sitting. The workshop’s approach was based on CIWiL’s flagship transformational leadership model and advocated for leadership that supports women’s rights and gender equality.
Women leaders from various sectors led participants through activities and discussions that explored:
The concepts of gender and gender equality
- Acting as a transformational leader, including in spaces where there can be barriers to change
- Incorporating a gender lens in decision-making
- Effective leadership tools and strategies, including communications, resource mobilisation, networking, and creating and maintaining partnerships
- Parliamentary procedure and practice, with a focus on debating.
YWIL SITTING
On March 9, the Honourable Bridgid Annisette-George, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Trinidad and Tobago hosted the YWiL cohort. This Sitting was the first of its kind in the country. The 58 YWiL participants served as parliamentarians and officers of the parliament for a debate and vote on a budget amendment bill developed through a simulated gender-responsive budgeting process.
The simulated bill proposed fund reallocations in line with the following gender equalities priorities:
- Promoting gender equality through education,
- Continuing improvements to police responses to gender-based violence, and
- Strengthening food security and climate change resilience for small-scale women farmers.