Act on Equality is a project focused on building the capacities of young women in leadership, and local governance, inviting men to act as allies in equal gender representation in local decision-making structures, offering educational activities for girls and boys regarding gender equity, sexual and gender based violence, and cooperating with groups of men and women to raise awareness of the issues related to gender inequality and adopt mechanisms that lead to a healthy and progressive community.

The geographical focus is in six municipalities of Kosovo, precisely Mitrovica, Vushtrria, Drenas, Skënderaj, Podujeva and Vitia. 6 camps, 12 trainings, 12 round-table discussions with Village Councils’ leaders, 12 campaigns, and 20 community meetings have been held since the beginning of the project in 2015.

–          Young women from 18-30 have been trained on leadership and gender matters, local governance and developing communities with equal gender representation;

–          Trainings with women and men, boys and girls from 12-18 have also been part of the project, and have been trained on sexual and gender based violence in order to raise awareness as early as possible, and they have build campaigns on the subject on their own.

Through education we have built a network of empowered women which have supported each other in engaging in their communities as leaders and activists, also by becoming part of Village Councils. Women have afterwards served as mentors to girls and boys in the activities held to promote gender fair practices and address violence towards women and phenomena that affect a lot of women, such as rape, trafficking and prostitution. All of these activities have opened discussion within the traditionally led-by-men communities, and have spread messages against violence and inflicted another response through the campaigning done by boys and girls involved in the project.

This project is being implemented by PEN, as the leading organization, with the support of The US State Department, and The Kosova Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims (KRCT) as subcontractor.

This project contributes to the following Sustainable Development Goals: