Changing family dynamics in displaced communities of Islamic Origin: An Educational/Training Program

The two-year project funded by Ford Foundation will create an interactive educational program for front-line researchers (academic and practitioners) in the Palestinian Territories. The program includes the following objectives:

1. To create an inclusive, interactive Educational/Training Program to share and  exchange knowledge and expertise in three related areas:  

1. Gender and family relations in an Islamic context;
2. Research  methodology and ethics in relation to the study of gender and Islam and
3. Policy development and intervention with regards to gender and family instability and family violence; 

  2.   To create a democratic consultative/collaborative forum for disseminating of research findings and sharing the knowledge acquired in the process of the SSHRC-funded research (MCRI) regarding family relations. Together, the Educational/Training Program and the Consultative/Collaborative forum seek to  build new knowledge and to explore collective means of influence and intervention in the existing power relations and social conditions of women’s lives. The participants in the educational/training program will include researchers from the academy and community who assist or facilitate the SSHRC research as well as a selected number of representatives of the local population who will gain the expertise and the voice to intervene on behalf of women in pursuit of the social change agenda outlined by the educational  program.

The first workshop was organized in Amman, Jordan for researchers from Gaza and Amman. The second workshops with participation of the Palestinian and Canadian university and community researchers took place at York University in August 2002 and the second workshop took place in Jerusalem, June 16-19, 2003. (Please see the report)