The Gender Project for Bulgaria Foundation is a non-governmental organisation, founded in 1994 managed by Board of Trustees and Mrs. Stanimira Hadjimitova, Director.
The organisation has been working on raising the public awareness of equal opportunities of men and women and women's rights as human rights. It lobbies the national and local authorities to implement the gender equality policy of UN and EU.
The foundation is a part of:
- - the national network of WAD / Women's Alliance for Development/,
- - the regional women's network KARAT Coalition - NGOs from 13 CEE countries
- - the Stability Pact Gender Task Force
Activities:
- Advocacy campaigns
- Training programs
- Information dissemination
- Research programs
- Networking
In the period 1995-2003 the foundation worked on more than 30 projects in the following fields:
Violence against Women
- Documenting Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women in Bulgaria - in cooperation with the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, USA;
- "Gender Education in School project in 40 schools both in Sofia and the country, supported by Open Society, Sofia; MAMA CASH, Netherlands; OSI, Budapest and UNIFEM TRUST FUND;
- Prevention of Violence against Women Campaign encompassing the first representative quantitative research of domestic violence, two seminars for 60 journalists from the country, 40 radio broadcasts entitled Gender Equality on the Horizon national radio, four 30-minute documentaries on the national TV;
- Unspoken silence - a 60-minute documentary on domestic violence within the ethnic groups in Bulgaria;
- - Numerous campaigns within the annual 16 International Days against Violence against Women including bicycle tour of Sofia and concert performed in front of the National Theater in 2002 to support the draft law against domestic violence.
Women and the Economy
- - The Business Start-up Guide and Export Guide - Better Business for Women were elaborated for unemployed women;
- - Numerous seminars were conducted based on the above manuals and supported by projects of Global Fund for Women;
- - The foundation was a partner of Agency for Social Analyses and WAD in the project Gender Aspects of Poverty and Inequality in Family and Labor Market funded by the World Bank - Sofia;
- - Re-granting program Women's Poverty and Unemployment financially supported by Global Funds for Women. This program supported five NGOs from the country, which drafted and implemented projects on the theme.
Women in Decision-making
Gender Project for Bulgaria Foundation has been implementing implementing Women Can Do It projects", since 2000, financially supported by the Stability Pact Gender Task Force for SEE. The projects aim is training in political skills and women's support to participate more actively in public and political life through creation of networks for joint activities. Training of active women from political parties and NGOs in 37 towns in the country; the women's groups of the five parliamentary parties and their youth groups as well; women mayors and active and educated Roma women was conducted. In 2003 seminars on gender equality at local level with the women's political and public elite of 7 towns were conducted to resolve one concrete problem of the local women.
This is a way to establish women's lobby in a town and create environment for a future local structure of national gender equality mechanism. 40-second TV spot on women's role in politics was produced and aired by Europe TV channel for a period of 4 months, which launched the National Campaign 2003 for equal opportunities of women and men in Bulgaria.
Institutional Mechanisms for Women's Advancement
The foundation took part in the work group to the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy (2000 - 2001) on elaboration of draft law about equal opportunities of women and men.
Numerous advocacy activities have been carried out to promote the above draft law. Various standpoints on the anti-discrimination draft law have been also presented with the various parliamentary committees.
The foundation has participated actively in the activity of the Consultative Committee on Equal Opportunities of Women and Men to the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy.
Women and Media
The Gender and Media project has been successfully implemented in partnership with the Faculty of Journalism and Mass media to of the University of Sofia in 2003 being funded by MATRA program of the Embassy of the Netherlands.
The foundation team has participated in many international meetings and seminars, among which:
- NGO Forum of the Fourth UN Conference on women's issues, Beijing 1995.
- UN Women's Committee for preparation of the final documents for the Special Session of UN General Assembly in regard to the Review "Beijing 5", New York, 3-16 March 2000.