 Welcome to you all. We're welcoming you women members of women led or majority women forests and farm producer organizations from all 10 countries that the FFF is currently supporting. This event is really for you. This dialogue is the first of a whole series of virtual dialogues that the FFF ID team would like to offer to women members of producer organizations on diverse topics around women's entrepreneurship and empowerment. So the objective of this dialogue is to create a platform for women like you producers entrepreneurs and leaders where you can connect with each other share and exchange and your experiences and ideas support and inspire each other around women's empowerment in your own context. Each dialogue will have a particular theme or topic, but always with a connection to women's empowerment issues. The topic of our first dialogue event is entrepreneurial and leadership mentoring and peer to peer learning. So opportunities, which allow women entrepreneurs and leaders to have access to experienced mentors and coaches who can provide guidance and support as they build and grow their businesses and leadership. There are about three very interesting mentoring and peer to peer learning initiatives. And on this note, I would also very much like to welcome our four speakers today. Thank you for being here with us. I can't see all of the participants but our four speakers today are Miss Varsha meta from the self employed women's association joining us from India. I'm also from the African women's network for community management and for us so they fuck up joining us from Cameroon. Miss Dunia L. Kuri from the women's association of day. And also a member of the weekend network joining us from Lebanon, who will then be introduced by miss Lucia Gerbado from FAO who coordinates the weekend network. We'll talk a little bit more about this network from Lucia shortly. After the presentations we will have some time to discuss the topic of entrepreneurial and leadership mentoring and peer to peer learning in smaller groups. We hope that within these smaller group discussions will be able to collectively generate some recommendations on how women producer organizations businesses and leaders could be supported through appropriate mentoring and peer to peer learning opportunities. And I'm not certain because I cannot see all of the participants but there might also be some females FFF steering committee members joining us in this meeting or other women leaders from our wider FFF network who bring a wealth of knowledge and insights to share and who will guide us in our future gender focused work within the FFF so one welcome to to all of you as well. So before we dive into our presentations I just wanted to say a few words on the gender related work in the FFF and to put this event into context, and to set the scene for our presentations and discussions today. So, despite major progress in reducing overall global poverty levels, new research shows a feminization of poverty meaning that women are still at a greater risk of slipping into, or remaining in poverty. And this is especially true in the agricultural forest sectors, even though women play important roles along agriculture and forest value chains. They suffer large gender inequalities in access to agricultural assets, input services, new technology information markets, and to the control of the products and income from their sale. And this causes very large costs to their countries communities and households. And the FFF has as its main focus the strengthening of forest and farm producer organizations or we call them FFPOs. Formal and informal produce organizations can help rule communities overcome poverty and facilitate their access to resources assets markets and services. Women only producer organizations can be crucial where existing producer organizations are restricted to men, or where it is culturally not foreseen for men and women to sit together and jointly negotiate and make decisions. However, women only groups often remain limited to the local level. And in mixed organizations, on the other hand, women may be well represented as members but few of them actually occupy leadership positions. So generally women are often excluded or poorly represented in such organizations which tends to reinforce existing gender inequalities. And equality is however central to the forest and farm facility in achieving the goal of equitable livelihoods and sustainable landscapes. And as part of the FFF gender strategy, we therefore aim to offer events such as this to allow women for peer to peer that is women to women learnings and exchange of knowledge and experiences. And in ways to reconcile family and work life is a challenge for working women everywhere. But we know that greater empowerment of women can lead to greater public investments in childcare education and health. And this in turn has many positive effects on women's livelihoods and well beings and indeed, everyone's livelihoods and well beings. Women are often touched on very sensitive and controversial topics, including the division of labor in the family level, or the treatment of gender by religion. However, gender equality in business is often a more acceptable entry point for reducing women's vulnerability and empowering their status within organizations and households. The economic empowerment through entrepreneurship is an entry point to other forms of empowerment, and it is also one of the most important factors contributing to equality between women and men. So this dialogue series therefore really focuses on women's entrepreneurial empowerment. In this event, we have selected the topic of mentorship and peer to peer learning, as it can be a very valuable tool for women entrepreneurs and leaders by providing guidance and support networking opportunities skill development, confidence building and accountability to women's goals, own goals and commitments. I think this dialogue series useful and relevant for you we have also asked you prior to this event to make topics you would like to see covered in future learning events such as this, and we will draw from your feedback as we develop new dialogues in the future. So after these few observations and introductions. I would now like to give the floor to our first speaker, Miss Varsha Mehta. She's joined us online. She's here with us. A few words on Varsha. She is an independent researcher from India. Since completing her postgraduate degree in forestry management in 1994 she has worked on projects focusing on food and livelihood security natural resource management and gender equity with you and agencies, the World Bank and NGOs such as Teddy the Agakhan Foundation and She also volunteers for organizations with a rights based agenda. So Varsha will introduce us to the manager in the school which is an initiative by the self employed women's associations say what in India, aiming to help its many women micro entrepreneur members develop leadership and business skills. Miss Varsha, over to you. You have 10 minutes for your presentation and just a quick reminder to everyone to help our interpreters do their job. Please speak slowly and clearly. Thank you very much. Over to you, Varsha. Thank you very much, Qatar. It is indeed an honor for me to talk about the Seva manager in the school and Seva per se. Seva is the self employed women's association and it has a legacy of over 50 years with a number of very critical leaders who have founded this organization and seen it grow. So I will try to do justice to this organization in the 10 minutes that I have. So Seva manager in the school which actually means Seva's school for manager is probably the only organization of its kind in India, possibly in Asia, which is working towards building the manager and of women micro entrepreneurs. Seva manager in the school includes members who are engaged primarily in agriculture and livestock rearing, but also occupations such as weaving embroidery, tailoring and a range of other micro enterprises. Now with its focus on women micro entrepreneurs, particularly women and in sectors that are categorized as the informal economy. This gives this places Seva in a place that is very niche and very important for women empowerment. And the organization Seva manager in the school was established as an independent arm of Seva in the year 2005. And it's the purpose of establishing this was to upskill and capacitate members of Seva in response to a demand that came from the members. Now, I've been referring to Seva on and off for the benefit of the listeners. Let me share here a little bit about Seva is the self employed women's association which is a registered national level trade union of women workers. And it has been in existence now for over 50 years registered in the year 1972 by illa bain but who was a visionary lawyer and the founder of Seva. Now over the course of the last 18 years since formation of SMS there have been many significant developments and milestones in the growth of SMS or the Seva manager in the school. What is common across all of them I've listed a few bullet points but I'm not going to read each of them what I want to draw out here is the commonality that that is visible to an outsider in what is recognized as a milestone is the involvement of a partner with expertise in management training. And all of these were, they were not accidental these milestones, Seva manager in the school and Seva leadership. At various points in their growth recognize the need for expertise and assessment of its of the work that it was doing or an assessment of the outcomes of the work that it was doing and received these inputs from institutions such as the the premier management institutions in the country such as the Indian Institute of Management, the Institute for Rural Management, which is at Anand. There's also the Rai Institute which was instrumental in developing the mini MBA program that Seva offers, and that was the start of a lot of management related training modules that Seva continues to offer today. In terms of financial assistance the World Bank has been a regular supporter, including the World Bank Institute. Next please. Now, to understand how to understand the training and capacity building model of SMS we first need to understand the institutional model of Seva. And what we have here what I have here on the slide is a representation of a district level association. And I'm going to talk about a little bit about its structure and the methods of functioning. Now, while Seva is a national entity, the district level associations are autonomous bodies that are federated at the national level. So, decision making across various districts and in Gujarat in the state of Gujarat they operate in nine districts they have these associations in nine districts. They take their decisions independently. And the decision making body at the district level is called the Karobari or the Executive Committee. Now that is supported by a group of individuals who have expertise in different thematic areas and is led by a person that who is known as a district coordinator. Now point to be noted is that all of the members of the district team are also members of Seva. So, Seva, a manager in the school while it is building the capabilities of its members. There are two things that are happening simultaneously in this in the Seva structure and the training model for different occupations that the members practice. So, they have what is known as a trade committee, Adhanda Samiti, which is a representative body of members selected by the grassroots members at the district level. And there is another representative body, which is the Pratnidhi Mandal, which includes representatives from across all the trades. It may sound a little bit confusing, but the idea is to to have I mean there are two structures that seem to be parallel, but they actually converge at the district level. The trade committees focus on specific occupations and the representative body the Pratnidhi Mandal is where all the different trades converge and members of the Pratnidhi Mandal therefore take up issues that are that are originating from the grassroots through the Danda Samiti's and right up to the district level. If there are any clarifications that are sought on this I'll I'll be happy to respond to questions on that, but this had to be put forward to be able to explain the training model. Now, in terms of scale, I think it is important to recognize that SEVA is, I mean, SEVA of course is a national entity, but in terms of the numbers of members, just to give you an idea the Amitabha district association alone has up to 60,000 plus members and the numbers continue to increase every year. So we are really talking about a very large spread out organizations and a staggered training model that they are following. So how within within the state, the way it operates is that at the village level. Members, new members who are enrolled, they receive training from the village leaders and these village leaders are called Aagevan. However, Aagevan is also a term that is used for all leaders within the SEVA terminology and organization, but for now let us say village leaders, they provide the training to the members. Now, the village leaders are trained by master trainers. And this happens at the sub district level, usually there is a CLBRC as they call it a community learning and business resource center, which operates just So the way it works is that village level trainings to members are provided by the village leaders, the village leaders receive training from master trainers at the district and the sub district level, and the master trainers in turn, undergo rigorous training at Amitabha where the training is provided by the SMS faculty. A little bit about the training that the master trainers receive. It is it consists of about three days, two to three days every month over a year, and during this, the master trainers who are actually the training facilitators at the lower level. They receive inputs, they practice the training themselves, they receive feedback and continue to work on improving their skills of training. Now, what is the kind of training that the master trainers undergo, we'll look at it in the next slide please. So there is this concept that Seva has SMS has which is called a training ladder. Now training ladder is something that every master trainer is required to go through these are the basic compulsory training modules and trainings that every master trainer is required to go through. We start with the first right after enrollment as a member, and the first is member education so as a member of Seva what are the values that you uphold, what are the values that we work towards, how do we build the organization. And that's related to that. And because this is an organization that is founded on principles of of decentralized decision making women empowerment and the philosophy that either been but has believed in. And a few trainings are about how to mobilize members how to how to approach women get them interested in the organization get them interested in learning new skills to to share with to sensitize them to their rights and entitlements. Thereafter, there are a few training modules wherein the focus is on the trainer and how the trainer presents herself. So there are things like, you know, platform skills and presentation skills even grooming skills that are there that that further moves on to problem decision making and every member spoke with what they mentioned was, you know the importance of these trainings in their own life. While they are learning this as master trainers to be able to pass on the training to members at at various levels in the organization. Personally, every member has benefited from the training that she has received. Okay, so the key characteristics of the training and learning model they fall into four broad categories the first is to do with members access to training. The trainings are organized at the, and here I'm referring to the members at the village level the micro entrepreneurs that we are training the training is free for them. It responds to a felt need. It is conducted in the village where the participants feel most comfortable and have easy access. None of the sessions is longer than two hours. Typically, it is one to one and a half hour session so it saves them time and resources. The second aspect is to do about the training per se. Because the trainer is a local she uses the local language and dialect and examples that the members and the trainees can relate with the training itself relies on a mix of methods catering to different different ways that people learn. It uses audio visual tools role play observation demonstration depending on the topic of the training. And more recently, SMS has also introduced the hybrid mode where members can receive part training offline and part training online. And then there is the self learning format for the new generation members on specific training topics. The third aspect, the third key aspect is about the design of training training module is standardized and carefully designed it takes up to six months for module from for the finalization of a module from an idea to something that can be delivered as a training and even then it is not considered final family even after it is final and being used in the field. Every time there is feedback, the intermittently the modules are revisited reviewed and improved upon to reflect the realities and feedback from the field. The most important which is what makes the training very very effective is post training support and that happens to be also the theme of today's discussion. This is, you know, members, the trainees they receive post training mentorship from the village leaders who are the, who are also the trainers that provided them training. And this is not limited to any particular, you know, a few weeks after training or such. For example, if it is about cultivation of a particular crop that mentorship support lasts through the cropping cycle. So, it's an ongoing mentorship, and that that is only possible because this is not just a training that this is not being done just as a training but it is part of an institution building process and people who are inducted as members they know that they're here for good. I realized that time is short so I'm going to rush through the next couple of slides. Maybe you can give me a minute extra because of the disturbance. Yes, one more minute. Thank you. Thank you. For financial sustainability of the model SMS is able to raise 10 to 20% of its financial resources through trainings, the training that the master trainers undergo is all paid. Remember I mentioned that members at the village level are not paying but people who receive the training and use it for training other members they always pay for the training. And this takes care of about 10 to 20% of the finances financial resources required but the large part of funds are coming from project grants and trainings that are offered by SMS to other national and international agencies. And this brainstorming and strategizing going on to to look to move towards greater self reliance in terms of funds. Next please. There hasn't been any systematic. I mean it's it's understandable it's an organization that has been around for 50 years. Lately there is talk about doing a systematic impact assessment. Otherwise, there's hundreds of case studies that have been prepared and the difference between save our members and non save our members is visible when one interacts with them. A few other indicators of the impact of the training or the effectiveness of the training is that members who have enrolled. They have to pay a membership fee every year and the renewal rate is it is between 80 to 90% which is an indication of the usefulness that the members see from being members of SEVA. Next please. In terms of learnings. And this is especially in the context of greater financial sustainability. It is spent that SMS needs to be able to provide some sort of a certification and recognition of the training that is being provided so it's it's not just the skills that are important, but the certificate which says that so and so has undergone this training, because people would then be able to use those certificates when they are applying for jobs elsewhere. It is also a signal of the quality of training for people who do not know SEVA well. So, so that's that's that's important. What has also been realized through at the SMS approach is that mentoring and hand holding support are absolutely critical. A holistic approach to training is what is required. And that is the approach which they are following. I feel that it is important to also showcase the outreach and impact assessment to be able to draw in new members and new trainees into the fold. Last slide after this in terms of the way forward. As you can see college is being considered which will have appropriate accreditation from the government bodies and further standardization of the curriculum and pedagogies as also continuing education for SMS core faculty. So that is all. Thank you very much. Thank you, but thank you so much for this really inspiring presentation a very impressive example of mentoring and peer to peer training. I was particularly impressed by the hierarchical structure of your training model which really allows the training curricula to trickle down all the way from district to village level and women being able to learn from their peers in their own language in their when they're comfortable to do so and have time to do so. Also very impressed by the wide range of topics your master trainers are trained and before they can call themselves master trainers it's just sort of really highlighting just how many different capacities women leaders and entrepreneurs need to have an often struggle to have to be successful. Thank you so much for this. I would now like to suggest to continue with our next presentation and reserve some time afterwards to give our presenters the chance to answer your questions in our Q&A session if we have time. Please also feel free to post your questions in the chat function. And I ask our presenters to keep an eye on that and answer questions to them. So with this I would like to introduce our next speaker, Ms. Rose Bellagy-Masso. Rose holds a diploma of advanced studies in economic policy management and has 19 years of experience in sustainable development. She has participated in a range of professional training courses on sustainable natural resource management, gender issues, local economic development, conservation and others. She's currently the regional coordinator in charge of cooperation and planning of the African women's network for community forest management. Rose is also the deputy national coordinator of the NGO Cameroon Ecology. Rose will take us slightly away from entrepreneurial leadership to talk about peer to peer mentoring for advocacy leadership in the form of women leadership circles in agricultural and natural resource management. Rose will present in French so you can hear the English and Spanish interpretation by clicking on the appropriate channels. Welcome Rose, I'll give you 10 minutes. Thank you very much. Thank you for passing the floor. In the framework of this meeting, I would like to share with you the experiences of women leaders in agriculture and natural resource management. In my intervention, I'm going to talk about a small introduction. Can we move on to the next slide please? In the introduction, I'm going to do a very brief presentation of the group of women in the forestry and agricultural sector in Africa. Then the history of the creation of the clarinet, then the accompaniment of the clarinet, particularly the approach and the dynamics of the group of actions. Then the results and learning and in conclusion, we are going to bring the principles and perspectives. So in the introduction, you have to say that the slide, can we go to the next slide please? I hope you follow me. Yes absolutely, continue. So in the introduction, I'm going to say that the slide was created in 2009 at the IRP, and it has to be of 20 countries more. So the countries a little bit of Central Africa, the West Africa, and we are a platform of please. You see on the right hand side, the forestry of rural Africa. Next slide please. Next slide please. Next slide please. So anyway, here is the next slide please. I'm going to show you the differences between the two countries. And I'm going to tell you that we are two countries more. Next slide please. In relation to the historical creation of the clarinet, they are talking about the problems and challenges women face. And at the end of the day, the report is made clear that women need help to organize themselves, to exchange their knowledge between them, to be able to see that their ability to negotiate and negotiate to influence politics in their environment. So the report is in place, the leadership program, which is one of the main components of the clarinet. And clarinets are the circle of 22 in culture and the management of natural resources. This initiative is going to be held today in 2015 in Kampung, thanks to the financial support of WUKAN. And two years later in 2017, FACOP was also supported by FFDS to continue this work. Next slide please. In relation to the creation of clarinets and the dynamics of the organization, we also have the main stage. We started with a study on the most important chart in the development strategy document in Kampung. And then this study was done with the elaboration of WUKAN for the implementation of the recommendations. Then we made the choice of the areas of other parts of the country. After that, we formed sensitized and trained women on the clarinets approach, on leadership and on leadership. Next slide please. In fact, what are the clarinets for? The clarinets are to support the mobilization of rural women in favor of the defense of their active integration in the development and development projects in the sectors of agriculture and natural resources. In a five-year process, it is about structuring and strengthening the ability of active rural women in the culture and in managing natural resources and to emerge among them leaders capable of speaking with the authority or the name of their land. Next slide please. In Mexico, results and changes are observed. We already have to say that we have started with a map of certain artists in the management of natural resources and we have produced a repertoire of these different parts. So today we have six clarinets at the level of the Kampung. Two at the level of the square. Excuse me, our entrepreneurs have little problems, little issues to hear from you. Can you speak a little louder please? Okay, thank you. Okay, I was saying that at the level of the results, we have today six clarinets at the level of the Kampung and two clarinets at the level of the Gambia and Lyberia. This is only what we have mentioned here, but we must already note that there is also a clarinet at the level of the square, a clarinet at the level of the square and a clarinet at the level of the square. As a change observed, we can see that women have developed skills and skills that lead to the activities of pleidoying for the defense and taking into account their choice and interest in the policies that are linked to culture and the management of natural resources. Can we move forward? I hope that I am on the table now. Can you hear me? We still have a nice question. There is a lot of noise behind us. I don't know if it's possible to change the microphone or to be too close. One moment, please. Can we move forward now? Okay. Okay, so I was saying earlier that today we have six clarinets at the level of the Kampung, one clarinet at Gambia and one at Lyberia. This is exactly what we have mentioned here, but we also have to note that we have a clarinet at the level of the square, a clarinet at the level of the square and a clarinet at the level of the square. As for the change observed, women have developed skills and skills that lead to the activities of pleidoying for the defense and taking into account their choice and interest in the policies and mechanisms linked to agriculture and the management of natural resources. So we can move forward. This is how you can observe through these images here, women mobilized for the re-vendication of the right to work in Otogo to have acquired a capacity reinforcement. They are today even defending themselves right now. This is a science of sensitization where women are in the process of re-vendication of the right to work. Next. Diapo. Okay, we move forward. Next positive diapo, please. That's exactly what's going on there. At the level of changes, we can see that they observe at two levels, having on the situation and the clarinet operation, as well as the development of collective activities. Regarding the situation and the clarinet operation, we have today, can we go up to the next diapo? Next positive diapo. Yes, we have women who are better organized and structured. Today, basic text based on the accompaniment they received, they have monthly meetings, and they are better structured. They make efforts to respect their status and internal rules. There, you have women associations at the level of Cameroon, as you can see in the image. Next. Next positive diapo. Okay. And at the level of women, women also have collective activities, that is, at the level of production and transformation of products. We move forward. Next positive diapo, please. Okay. There you have women at the level of Cameroon, at the level of Voix, Togo, and RDC, and they are organized around collective activities. They have collective farms, for example, in Rachid, as you can see where the women are run. The bananas, the agroforestry, and there you have a seed ready to be transplanted. Can we move forward? Next positive diapo. Yes, we have talked about transformation equally. Here, for example, we have the associations of women, more particularly young women, who transform products non-linear, in red, in black, in white. You also have certain people who transform the pastec of fruits for consumption. Next positive diapo. Can we move forward? Yes. We have said that women are better organized and better structured. Here, for example, we have an image of women gathered at the level of Togo and at Voix who sell products collectively, which they organize in front of the group. The front of the group allows them to minimize costs in relation to transportation, in relation to the price on the market, and they can negotiate the price well because they are in a group. We move forward. Next positive diapo. And always in terms of change observed, we see today that thanks to the follow-up received from RevaCorp, some women leaders participate today in municipal councils thanks to the dialogue established between the community executives and the women leaders. We also see the integration in some of the women's activities in the community budget with their better structured organizations as they are. They can now propose activities at the level of their community and they see these activities integrated in the work plan of the community for the year. And even more interesting, we have some women who have become municipal councils and participate today in the decision-making thanks to the follow-up received from RevaCorp. And here we have, particularly, Cameroon's local community. We move forward. Next positive diapo, please. In terms of conclusions and particularly as a main concern, we see that when rural women benefit from adequate accommodation, they are able to take the necessary actions to raise the different challenges they face. They also come out of the clarine experience, the mobilization, the structuring and reinforcement of rural women's capacities remain unimpeded. In terms of perspective, the RevaCorp would like to continue the implementation of groups of women leaders in agriculture and the management of natural resources in other regions of Cameroon, in Gambia, in Liberia and, why not, in several other member countries of the network. The objective, in the end, is to support the implementation of national and regional clarines in order to increase the influence of women in these sectors. Finally, the RevaCorp would also like to support the development of rural women companies and communities so that they can improve their economic status, so that they can improve their influence in the environment. On that note, I would like to thank you for your valuable attention. Thank you very much, Rose. Thank you so much for this really interesting insight into an innovative way of providing a platform for women farmers to exchange with each other and to increase their capacities to influence decision-making processes that have an impact on their livelihoods. I think it's also interesting to note that these women leadership circles provide a rare opportunity for government staff to interact directly with women producers. And it seems that through this direct interaction and mentoring, the women leadership circle indeed seems to have acted as a sort of springboard for some women to become included in political decision-making processes and political committees. So very interesting. Thank you again. With this, I would like to make the transition to our next speakers who have kindly joined us in this FFF event from outside FFF network. I would like to introduce Ms. Lucia Gervaldo from FAO Weekend and Ms. Dunia Elcuri from the Women's Association of Dair el-Ahmar. Lucia will give us a quick introduction to what Weekend is and then give the floor to Dunia who will present us the mentoring and peer-to-peer work of her NGO WADA. So please, Lucia and Dunia, the floor is yours. You have 10 minutes. Please go to your presentations. Thank you, Kata and the Forest and Far facility for the invitation for creating these interesting women and men's space of discussion and collective growth. I would like to give you a brief, brief introduction of what we are doing as we can community knowledge practice to foster the women leaders, voices, agencies and leadership in the dry land forest and agro-supercell systems. Weekend is a mechanism for women empowerment to connect the south-south practices and policies through mentorship, knowledge sharing, learning opportunities and co-outline advocacy actions. So we can build on the current women leaders capacities strengthening the women led organizations, empowering them to raise their voices, increase their influence in high level global discussions such as the UNCCD co-15 and the UNF triple C co-27 last year. So we provide one by one mentoring support, capacity development opportunities and a mutual learning space. So the group of organizations can synergize their advocacy efforts, create consortium, co-create gender responsive projects together. So in short, we facilitate also the meaningful engagement of the women leaders in decision-making processes on climate change, land restoration and agro-supercell systems. So now I want to give the floor to one of the most active member from Lebanon Duniel Curie. She is a founder and president of an NGO named Women's Association of Day Haramad Wada. She has over then 30 years of experience in directing programs supporting women women leaders in our community to be more involved in responsible tourism and agri-food sector. So over to you Duniel. Good afternoon everybody and thank you for being with you on this day. It's a great opportunity to share our vision and our experience together all together. So I'm very happy to be able to present our experience in the mentoring and peer-to-peer training. So we are Duniel Curie founder and president of the Women's Association of Day Haramad. It's a Lebanese non-governmental organization established since 1994 in Day Haramad. It's a town of the Bekaa of Lebanon and Wada it's the initiative of Wada was awarded the Dubai International Award for Best Practices to improve the living environment since the year 2002. What was our mission and vision? Wada aims to provide and improve standard of living for all the residents of Day Haramad. Helping them solidify their local roots and providing more economic opportunities. How? We are asking how we can do it how we can empower this local community. Our initiative is in a very districts, small districts in the Bekaa we were trying to make the impact and through our intervention in this community we are looking to improve the living environment of this community and because this is the area and it's a semi-arid climate it is a very very rich area in the natural resources we have we are in a agriculture land of the Bekaa and we have a lot of historical sites but the local community doesn't know what are those resources are important this is why we intervene and we try to open the eyes of local community that you have a lot of resources and this is how we should struggle and we should work to improve our living environment this is how because we have the biodiversity we have springs and surrounding the area we have forest in the area we have the cedars forest we have the juniper forest so it is a lot of resources in this area but the people are living it's a poor really a very very bad economic situation this is how we intervene and we are we try to support this community by involving specifically the woman the woman of this area because they didn't they weren't involved in the economic sector they are just housewives so we try to empower them to be involved in the economic sector and what we focus on was our capacities the local know-how what this woman know to do how we can improve their know-how they are very well known for for the agro food because we have we have something which is called money money is the products prepared basic on our products of the the farmers they have you know because we have the fruits we have the vegetables we have everything how we can conserve our products this is the agro food process they know this they know they do it for their family but how we can improve this by making them a product that we can sell this is why we make a lot of training capacity building boards this is how we began making those women learn how to improve these products how they can make it a product that they can sell on the market then we have a lot of as I told you we have a lot of natural and and historical sites in the area this is why we support them to go to reach those spaces to know about those spaces we we make like a training to let them discover those resources and that the tourism sector also is a very important sector in this region we are very close to the Baalbak temples which are Roman temples we are about 15 kilometers not so far we are about 40 kilometers from the city of Lebanon which is a very very rich natural resources we have very little religious sites we have our leader which is very close to our area so we make this community aware about those natural resources and this is how we build our trainings on what we have how we can improve what we have how we can enhance the women to go to work to to make better products better handicrafts also because we have traditional handicrafts so what we try to do is to conserve our traditional know-how and to make our image our local image to conserve our local image because it's very important we try also to conserve our food because we have a very recognized food in Lebanon we have a very specific and in the area we have our traditional and natural products and the food the traditional food this is why we build our training programs we were mentoring the people we were mentoring the women to go through their own know-how to improve their know-how and to build our economic strategy on our resources built on our resources and we try to work on a specific area which is the town of my husband I get married in this to go to their lahba I've been in the on the Mediterranean side so I agriculture land this is I and I really I love this community because they have they conserve their traditions and we support them to conserve their know-how this is very important to keep our image to keep our tradition this is very important and to keep our resources because the farmers are growing our vegetables our fruits how we can conserve this resources all over the year this is the agro food and in the sub with the support of many partners local national and international we built a lot of partnership with local with ministries with with the EU with other different partners all over the world I mean they support us to build our community center it's a rural development center where we are giving all these opportunities for the local community on a long term basis so we built our center we take the land from the municipality we are very collaborating with the local authorities as well as the national level so we have very good communication and we we get a land where we we begin to build our community center responding to the needs of those people who make the trainings with us the peer-to-peer trainings this is where we have our whole seminar hall we have our kitchen to prepare the products and we receive visitors in our center to enjoy our local food we have our production center and this is how and we make bangalows to receive also visitors we build also we make the training for the local communities for the women of the area for which are members also of WADA to open their house as guest houses because tourism is a very important sector for women it's not only about food and agro food women can also evolve in the tourism sector and it's very very good opportunities for her and a very good income generating for her and for her family of course this is how we open we make training for the women we support them to have their house as guest houses they manage their house and they improve the building and so we have 30 guest house a network of 30 guest houses in the area to receive the visitors coming to visit this area so this is how we improve the tourism sector and we support them to have this guest houses as green guest houses we support them to put solar energy for hot water we make training for the solid waste managing the solid waste we bring for them the business to make the selection of so we try to find the needs of this community and we support them to improve their living environment this is how we are now a member of the DMO the destination management organization which is supporting the rural tourism sector the area and we are also a member of the Lebanese council of women at the national level we are a member of the national commission for Lebanese women and we are part of the making the strategy of the Lebanese women we have our opinion in the strategy now and this is how we are moving from the local to the national then in the support with the weekend also we move to the international so we get the opportunity to be a member of the weekend to the COP 15 and this is how from where I participated in the CSO I delivered the statement of the CSO concerning the gender issues and we proposed the action plan during this COP and the recommendations for turning the gender and the women action plan this is how we can move and I remember with the national delegation of the Lebanese delegation to the COP 27 to Sharon Sheikh this is how we are moving from the grassroots to the national and international level and this is how we are bringing the global from the COP where we have the recommendations where we know about what is going on to the local now when I come back we have a lot of preparing a lot of projects concerning human energy concerning the biodiversity concerning the forest concerning all the times that are discussed during those COP we are trying to improve and to involve the local communities and to put them aware about what is going all over the world and the challenges that are facing the world this is how we continually in our center yesterday we have a training concerning the biodiversity concerning the bees keeping the products of the bees so it is a continual process going on to support women especially women and Jews with the farmers also but especially women we are focusing on women empowerment especially on women economic empowerment at the same time the women as decision making we are part of the Lebanese Council of Women they are supporting the participation of women in the political life so it is a integrated process this is how we are we are getting this methodology to support mentoring and women leadership we have a lot of women they are leaders now they are they have their own business they have their own COP a lot of women that have training making the training with us mentoring and the training so they are now really a leader and they can also have their own business and their own projects I don't know if I have more time or it's I'm afraid we've run out of time but I can see there are lots of lots of people commenting and we will provide a participant list at the end of this so that people can directly contact you also for any further clarifications thank you so much Dunja and thank you so much Lucia I think this is really interesting to hear about how we can support increasing women's leadership in international for us such as the COP climate negotiations and we certainly hope that the FFF and we can join forces in the future in empowering women producers voices to be heard loud and clear very inspiring also to hear about how in the case of Dunja's organization WADA the women in the community are invited to decide on a wide range of services that the center offers to the community and then offered opportunities to receive training relevant to these services so gradually activating their role in the sustainable development of their community at this point I would like to thank all our presenters for their contributions and insights we have heard about three very different initiatives but all with the focus on empowering women entrepreneurs or leaders through mentoring and peer to peer training so thank you for these quick introductions I we have slightly shifted our agenda because we've run out of time for a long Q&A session but perhaps we have time for one question and then I would like to move on to the next point in our agenda and I can see one hand up from Haija Lima please Good afternoon from all of you I want to thank you for the opportunity to create that you've created for this training it's a very good one and I want to appreciate that especially all the speakers I think that they shared what we all need to know moving forward as an organization I just want to I don't actually have a question but just to appreciate that what they are doing is what the way we should go and we have been also intentional about getting young women mentored into looking at the issues of agriculture and forest management it is very important currently we have a lot of young women that we are adding on to the change the leadership agenda but with the entrepreneurship as part of securing the economic security and it is very important and I want to appreciate I've learned a lot from the presentation that is going to add up to the models that we are developing for our young ladies especially currently we have up to 400 especially university and Greek students that we are working with to get them to understand why they need to take entrepreneurship part of their work is from production into the supply to the market we have a big entrepreneurship agenda and make money out of it so that the leadership training we are providing them they will be able to make it meaningful because you can be a leader if you don't have economic power so we are trying to combine the two and get them to understand why they need necessarily to understand the environment they work and protect the environment, get class ready, get their leadership set and together they can be able to make change that they are looking for and this we are doing it also through the mentoring so we have put up a mentorship academy and we are training them cautiously and deliberately to be able to be really sustainable when it comes to forest and farm producer issues and we have a lot of them that are currently are living pick up farming and they are thinking that they are making a lot of headway which I think is good the way to go and we need to really be passionate about it and get it to the level that will get the young people the energy is very important in this argument and we need to make sure that we are picking them along when it comes to looking at leadership and training and getting them to keep the environment safe and protect and benefit from it so thank you very much and thank you for all the presenters. Thank you also for me thank you very very wonderful to hear this this encouragement and to hear a little bit about your own activities and initiatives and as I said I'm speaking from Ghana I'm speaking from Ghana and we are members of the weekend learning community of learning I just want to establish that it's very important yes and as I said this is really a platformer and I really hope that this will also be an opportunity for you to engage with each other and I think that is over which will be soon and which means that I would really like to move on to the next part of our agenda which is a small discussion in smaller circles so we would like to break out now into three different rooms of an English, French and Spanish speaking room to discuss amongst ourselves some of the challenges and solutions around women entrepreneurial leadership mentoring we have put up three questions which we would like you all to discuss amongst ourselves and we will be facilitating the discussion but would also like to for each group to nominate a rapporteur someone who will take some notes during the discussion and then report back to us as we join the plenary we have slightly as I said we're slightly behind our schedule so I'm really hoping that you can stick around for additional 10 minutes and really participate in this discussion and hear also what other groups have come up with so I would now like maybe I just read out the questions so we're all aware of them so the three questions are what challenges do women producers face in becoming entrepreneurs and leaders question number one question number two how can peer to peer learning and mentoring address some of these challenges and question number three what type of peer support in terms of modality timing the format really of the support have you found or would you find most useful to set up or improve your business or leadership activities can I perhaps ask the three rapporteur to give us two to three minutes summary of what we discussed in your groups could we start with the English group please English group we were many people but I just want to summarize we were able to respond to all the three questions the first one challenges that entrepreneurs face when they want to become entrepreneurs as women one we say lack of training the right type of training is what we are talking about here lack of market opportunities is also one we talk about lack of women being connected to the right people who give them the right technology technology simple technology like phones internet use how to assess information on smartphones is what we are talking about lack of credit which is very important for women to be able to become very strong entrepreneurs we don't have it it's a serious challenge because of collateral then also another point we made has to do with very complex documents even for you to use to assess collateral from banks when even governments make it possible that we are not able to interpret their documents so it's a complex thing cultural barriers that put women always at home as be responsible for homes instead of also giving us opportunity to be able to become entrepreneurs and end money it's also a big challenge for women and then balancing household work and also businesses that women those who are entrepreneurs want to do you want to do or pay or social reproduction work at home and you also want to end money so that timing is always a challenge then also women if you want to do nobody recognizes things so it's also not a motivation enough for women who want to be entrepreneurs it's really important in assessing information we are in information world and if you don't have information you hardly can move forward so those are the challenges that we identify now the second question what can peer-to-peer help to address we talk about terror it helps us to avoid mistakes that others have repeated it makes us very confident it makes our expressions it enhances knowledge it also brings about innovation and efficiency and importantly as women in groups we are able to provide solutions together and get results and own the results together it's very important so that's the point number two question two the last question what type of support are we asking for we are asking for physical meeting as much as possible because it comes along with physical meeting their relationships although their connection is better then it also come along with the fact that we are able to have enough time to learn from each other better then we also suggested hybrid sessions so this is what the groups came out with and that is what I've reported thank you very much wonderful that was a really insightful summary I would now like to I have seen a hand up is Mary going to be the rapporter for the Spanish group wonderful please the floor is yours thank you very much in the group where we were we talked about some challenges for example related to the issue of inequalities of these spaces of participation of racism that also affects us racialized women the issue of climate change access to technological issues also then in that sense we thought it was important to establish a network of women globally that we could also think of some political agenda in which we see reflected in our interests there to generate some proposals and work and to promote these entrepreneurship in our territories also rescue this issue of the production with agroecological focus traditional knowledge of our of our culture of our territories to which we belong and what also coincided with the company that previously gave the issue of focusing on this work with strategic allies that have come to support us for a long time for these processes and the issue of access to financing mechanisms for the bio-employment that women in our organizations and territories and this also transversalize the general focus so that we can talk about the issue of the rights of women of access to reproductive sexual health of women that we can also talk about of our feminisms of our territories also even addressing the issue of certain norms and cultural canons that have also been submitted to women women and for the exchange and transfer of knowledge through women's networks could be one of the answers and that from that we can promote our our entrepreneurship and other means of life in which women are involved in our territories this would be and also urgent the issue of repotention of our entrepreneurship in this post pandemic context because in the context of the pandemic we saw ourselves affected in the issue of violence in the issue of not having access to health, education and above all to many things we saw ourselves very affected by women so in this sense I would like to thank you for the space and also congratulate the companies that have shared their experiences thank you very much wonderful thank you so much Mary and now I would like to quickly give the word to the reporter of the French group thank you thank you I am from Haichao I am from Togo we worked in French it is clear that we did not have much time but in two ways we had a challenge to confront the producer so in particular we have the support and support of the equipment we also have the importance of hostages for women's groups and we also have access to funding and credit services we also raised the need to strengthen the leadership and to access the equality of sex and also the financial security and then access to technology to allow these women to be productive in their activities so to answer the question of this and that we think that it is necessary that this partnership be made in this mentorship in which we will be able to improve our methodology so the theme of our objective and for the type of training precisely we can go further of strengthening capacity in governance in the establishment of partnerships for example the access to French equity and the mobilization of resources thank you thank you so much Haichao thank you to all of the reporters