Promising Practices and Toolkits > MUJER
MUJER is a non-profit organization that promotes the integral development of Latin American Women, emphasizing their rights and freedom.
Its mandate includes to carry out public education activities, provide support and training for front-line workers and volunteers and to provide leadership training for Young Latinas on violence prevention as well as immigration and refugee matters.
Mujer volunteers collaborate in developing information and education workshops and in organizing open forums and other public events. Their commitment, experience and enthusiasm form the backbone of the organization's fundraising efforts, Mujer's strong voice and participation in events at the local and national levels, as well as in the work developed by different committees.
The following activities developed by Mujer are their contribution to this OCASI project:
- Sharing experiences with other organizations about the development and implementation of a training project for volunteer youth, the Leadership Training on Violence Prevention/Sexual Assault for Young Latinas. Development of training materials and resources suitable for a professional development workshop to be presented to other immigrant community organizations interested in developing similar training for their volunteer youth. The following session was presented at the OCASI Professional Development Conference, October 2008.
Leadership Training for Young Immigrant Women
Through this workshop participants learnt about a Leadership Training Model, used successfully to train young Latin-American women as agents of change. The Leadership Training Model promotes healthy and equal relations among youth and includes building skills and knowledge to assist young women in combating violence in their own lives and preventing violence against younger girls and women. The project includes support for trained participants to work as volunteers doing presentations in schools and the community at large.
The presentation included a description of the training model, the theoretical /social framework being used and the process for outreach, recruitment and selecting participants. Using popular education methodology the workshop involved participants in discussion and analysis of the framework, the training component, the community outreach process and the challenges in the project implementation.
Participants also learnt successful strategies to engage their communities in how to address, reduce and prevent violence in their lives and to assist young volunteer women to take leadership roles.
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Production of a report documenting the development and implementation of the training for Young Latin American Women to be use as a "how-to" work plan to allow other organizations to create and sustain similar volunteer groups.
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Implementation of a Volunteer Outreach initiative. Information and discussion sessions for new young volunteer women.
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Development of curriculum and delivery of two training sessions for volunteer young women in Toronto.