Jayne's Women-Focused Gender-Inclusive Work

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Jayne Cravens:
Women-Focused/Gender-Inclusive Work

While not a gender specialist, I have a demonstrated commitment to women's issues and mainstreaming women's considerations in my development work. I have also had some training regarding mainstreaming women's issues. Work and training includes:

Virtue & reputation in the developing world. In some countries, a woman’s reputation regarding her virtue is every bit as important as food and health care, in terms of prosperity, let alone survival. This blog offers details that should serve as a caution to humanitarian and development workers wanting NGOs and government agencies to engage more on social media; you need to provide guidance for the women who would be expected to manage online activities on how to stay safe and protect their personal reputations. 2016
Why Do So Few Women Edit Wikipedia? Insights into virtual volunteering. While most reviews of the makeup of online volunteers at organizations, at least in the USA, show more women than men participating, and women providing more hours during their service, Wikipedia attracts far more men in its online volunteer ranks. Nonprofits and other volunteer-involving organizations might also be unconsciously excluding a particular group of people from participating, and this blog can help you think about ways to find that out. 2016
Compiled Women's Access to Public Internet Access, a resource to support the development of women-only Internet centers/technology centers/etc., or women-only hours at such public Internet access points, in developing and transitional countries. 2010
Reaching women in socially-conservative areas. While I was in Afghanistan, I was notorious for kicking-back field reports that stated “the community was consulted” about this or that project, but that never said if the decision-making included any women. Sadly, the report writers often came back to me with a scowl and lots of excuses about why women weren’t included when “the community was consulted.” When you work in humanitarian and development efforts, you must always be aware that talking to the official leadership of a community, a region, whatever, does not mean you are hearing about the needs of all citizens, such as minority populations or even majority populations — women. There are ways to seek out and include women in even socially-conservative areas so that they can be a part of decision-making. 2009
Compiled Empowering Women Everywhere - Essential to Development Success, a list of research and articles that confirm that empowering women is essential to development success and highlight the very particular challenges to women's access to education, health care, safety and economic prosperity.
Edited reports from international and national staff at a government ministry in Afghanistan with an eye to how women's concerns are, or are not, represented in field work, and made recommendations on how to address or communicate this. 2007
Worked with a gender specialist in the development of training materials to help local Afghan staff incorporate a women's focus in their work at all levels. 2007
Trained federal ministry staff in Afghanistan on how to take photos in a culturally-sensitive manner, particularly with regard to respect for local customs regarding women, and to meet various needs, e.g. to show female participation. 2007
Created and delivered a presentation for Afghan women on public speaking. 2007
Advised aspiring women bloggers, as well as female students of a variety of ages, from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and various locations in "the West" through a variety of online programs. 2006-present
Facilitated "Gender and the Digital Divide," an online discussion for TechSoup. I co-facilitated the event with a woman (and experienced online volunteer) from (and in) Lagos, Nigeria. 2003
Represented UN Volunteers in a UNDP private (internal) online forum regarding gender issues. 2003
Attended an internal training for staff at UN Volunteers regarding creating a comfortable working environment for women. 2003.
My online resources were cited in the UNDP Gender in Development Programme's Learning & Information Pack: Information, Communication & Knowledge-Sharing, published in 2000 (one of the first UNDP documents addressing this topic).
Judge for Women in Community Service National Volunteer Awards, USA. 1998
With HerDomain, based in Austin, Texas, an organization focused on women working in computer and Internet technology, advised on membership outreach and staffing our booth at SXSW, as well as working at said booth to recruit new members. 1997-1999
Compiled, edited and coordinated production and distribution of the newsletter for the South-Bay chapter of the California Abortion Rights Action League, staffed information booths for the chapter, conducted a workshop for all Northern California chapters regarding creating effective newsletters, and participated in an intensive two-day training by the National Abortion Rights Action League for North Western state offices regarding countering campaigns by religious fundamentalists, then trained South Bay grass roots volunteers, including from the local chapter of Planned Parenthood, in a mini-workshop later. 1992-1994

My studies for my MSc in Development Management included an ongoing focus on gender issues. I am a voracious reader of various publications regarding women's issues in development.

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Jayne
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www.coyotecommunications.com

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