FET COURSE IS OVER

Motta di Livenza, march 12th, 2021.

From 08 to 12 march 2021 the Female Engagement Team (FET) Course has been run by the Multinational CIMIC Group Instructors in favor of 25 students.

The course, carried out entirely in English and structured according to the lessons identified and learned achieved during and after the experiences gained by the CIMIC Operators while deployed in missions abroad, was conducted in presence in accordance with all COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. The aim of the Female Engagement Team Course was to provide the fundamental knowledge and skills to work in a team, in order to be able to interact with women in a given crisis area.

Through communication and negotiation lessons, as well as on gender perspective, students have developed the necessary skills to gain the trust of the local population, interacting mainly with female, in order to create the conditions to achieve a cooperative and collaborative environment, necessary to achieve the mission's objectives.

The teaching staff were made up of specialized and qualified Subject Matter Experts of the Unit and external collaborators, among them the Professor Ranà Khawand - Gender and Human Rights expert, currently part of the UN staff member with UN-Habitat in Lebanon, who gave a lecture on "Women’s Role in Arabic Culture and Tradition". Moreover Ms. Hafsa Ahmed Mohamed, working for the Somali Ministry of Defence, gave a lecture about the “Somali Cultural Awareness” and Ms. Rana Rahal, Gender Affairs Officer of United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), discussed about the Gender Mainstreaming and the UNIFIL Female Analysis Team. Very interesting was also the lesson about the Kosovo Cultural Awareness performed by OF1 Katja Vlaj, Gender Advisor of Slovenian Army Academy. Worth of mention the North Africa Cultural Awareness panel conducted by three CIMIC female operators, belonging to the Italian Battalion. The course, in addition to the lessons, gave to the participants the opportunity to test through different role-plays what they had learned in theoretic lectures, replicating some possible scenarios in which a Female Engagement Team might find itself operating.

To date, more than 2300 students, civilians and military, Italian and foreign, have attended CIMIC courses, testifying a level of education, responding to the needs of those who face the changing challenges of the today's operational scenarios.