By Elizaveta Bozhkova and Erica Reade
Women's groups from fi
ve cities in Russia met in Tver, Russia for a three-day national w orkshop on women's safety last week. The Information Center of the Independent Women's Forum (ICIWF), a Huairou Commission Member Network based in Moscow, and their community-based partner organization "We Are Living So," based in Tver, organized the workshop, from the 18th to the 20th of October.
At the workshop, women leaders exchanged lessons learned from the safety audit walks, focus group discussions, and meetings with local authorities and communities they each carried out in their respective cities (Petrozavodsk, Chelyabinsk, Pushchino, Dubna and Tver). They discovered similar problems in their cities, such as transportation problems, a lack of trust in the militia, a large number of dark and poorly lit and equipped streets, and a problem of drinking alcohol in public spaces.
At the seminar, workshop participants walked together through Tver to observe the safety issues the Tver women had mapped.The women also met to discuss how to popularize and mainstream the Russian women's movement and emphasized the need to seek stronger cooperation with local authorities. Each city presented the results of the safety audit maps, photos, diagrams and conclusions they conducted. All workshop participants agreed that their groups should seek strong cooperation with local authorities, and join efforts of all interested sides of community to solve safety problems in Russian cities.
Representatives of women's organizations and other non-governmental organizations, local groups, the media and governmental, police and internal affairs bodies also participated in the conference. Executive Board member of the Huairou Commission Lily Hutjes-Boelaars represented HC to bring in the global women's perspective; sharing HC's other programs, directions of activities, members and partners, awards and achievements with the participants.
Starting in May 2010, the five cities carried out safety audits, street surveys and focus groups to assess the severity of safety issues in their communities, identify the key stakeholders and to use as a much-needed opportunity to build and strengthen their relationships with city police and city authorities.
During the first stage, the women's groups met with representatives of their City Administrations and Internal Affairs Departments to secure their support. During the safety audit walks, community members and women leaders identified areas of insecurity in their neighborhoods and presented their findings to local authorities. In each city, after they completed the focus groups and data collection, the groups organized seminars to discuss the results of the safety situation in their cities. In Pushchino, the women got significant press recognition, with several articles having appeared in local newspapers and two video reports on local TV and the Internet. The groups reported stronger partnerships between their groups and city authorities as a result.
Petrozavodsk received a particular spotlight among the other cities because of its participation since 2009 in the UN Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women project, "Gender Inclusive Cities" administered by Women in Cities International (another Huairou Commission Member Network), along with Delhi, India; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Rosario, Argentina. This year Petrozavodsk entered and signed an Agreement of Cooperation and a Plan of Joint Actions with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Karelia, the Petrozavodsk urban district, the Information Center of the Independent Women's Forum (ICIWF) and the non-commercial partnership "Karelian Resource Center of NGOs". 
The National Workshop drew the attention of Internal Affairs bodies, city architects and urban planners to the safety problems women and their communities are experiencing and the crime prevention tools women's groups have developed. Newspaper and TV journalists were invited to the workshop, and a few articles about workshop have already been published and video reports were broadcast on local TV stations. The Representative from Chelyabinsk, Natalia Baskova the Head of Commission of Social Issues of the Chelyabinsk City's Duma, was very interested in continuing the activities in Chelyabinsk. Andrey Saveliev, the City Head Adviser in Tver, was so impressed women's results of mapping, and he agreed to organize a meeting between the City Head and community women from Tver to make plans on how to address the safety issues raised in the mapping and focus group discussions. Each city left in agreement to develop its own strategy for improving safety in line with the interregional and international experience gained at the conference.
