The Resource Centres have been established by Women’s Union of Turkmenistan with UN support with the aim of strengthening the dynamic social life of women and providing women with different types of assistance and consultation. The Resource Centres promote education of women, increase their knowledge of political, legal and economic issues and create favourable conditions for development of their business activity. Through these centres, women can also discover and develop their professional capacity, launch creative initiatives, and protect their rights and freedoms. All these activities are intended to regulate various issues relating to labour, family and non-discrimination of women.

Completion of this training course will allow trained staff of to act as resource persons and mentors to women in velayats and etraps who might fall victims of domestic violence. The course has been facilitated by local public organization “Keik Okara”, which has substantial experience working in the area of empowerment of women in Turkmenistan, particularly in capacity development and skill development programmes for young people, life skills and livelihood skills training programmes for youth, and also awareness raising campaigns.

The course participants got acquainted with the main concepts of gender violence, its consequences, overview of legal acts of Turkmenistan on women’s rights and interactive means of conducting trainings.  The trained trainers will have a chance to apply acquainted knowledge and skills by delivering first series of trainings in velayats in June 2008. The trainers will use modules developed and validated by “Keik Okara”.

UNDP’s project on Gender Mainstreaming in Policy Making in Turkmenistan supports the Government of Turkmenistan in promoting gender equality and women’s advancement by enhancing national capacity for gender sensitive analysis and raising public awareness on gender issues among government officials at central and local levels and population in general. The project also facilitates participatory process of preparing the shadow CEDAW report and revising National Action Plan.