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Aswat's Members Aswat Group consists of Palestinian gay women. All our programs generate from needs articulated by Palestinian gay women. The tasks of planning, implementing and evaluating are all performed by the same women who form Aswat's target group; thus, they provide first hand information and experience about their needs. Aswat Group consists of 20 women so far, they come from different cities and villages, from the Occupied Territories, Jerusalem, the North and even from Gaza. The members meet once a month to discuss issues that are related to the Group's development, activities and programs. During these meetings, we present and discuss the schedule of the day. This usually includes activities and workshops that are prepared by one or more members of the Group with the aim of responding to our own needs. There are also 10 members who share their ideas and suggestions via e-mail only, whether because they are not able to attend the meetings as a result of the political situation, or because they do not feel ready and/or comfortable to join the others in the meetings. The website provides a platform for all the women in the Group to share their experiences, dreams, fears, questions and opinions related to the work the Group is doing. The decisions regarding the Group are taken by consensus. As mentioned before, the Group carries out many activities through which we aim to satisfy the needs and the wishes of both the Group and every individual. In addition to the monthly meetings and the website, we also have Support Group Meetings. These meetings are intended to provide support and empowerment to the Group in general and to the members specifically, and to discuss the Group organisational structure and its development. Our Organisational Committee consisits of five of our members, and has the same mandate as other NGOs' boards of directors. Most of the Committee members are veteran activists in Women/Human Rights organizations, either as board members, volunteers or employees, which forms a think tank experienced in social-change programming. Any change in the goals and vision of the Group is carried out by the Committee. The Organisational Committee also works as a Steering Committee. It is responsible for the evaluation of Aswat's activities and programs and has the overall objective of developing the program, supervising the coordinator in charge, setting measurable objectives and timetable for each project and evaluating its progress. The organisational decisions are made by this Committee. Most of Aswat members are "closeted" to some extent. Consequently, only one or two members can go public and identify themselves as Aswat members in our activities involving a certain amount of exposure i.e., advocacy & outreach, education etc. The 'closet' is an outcome of a homophobic and patriarchal society which has an undeniable impact on Aswat activities. Yet, group members develop different strategies in order to participate in various activities. For example, some members use nicknames when presenting themselves or reaching out to other community members, while others choose to promote activities which allow a reasonable degree of anonymity such as translations, Committee meetings, virtual support to others, information gathering, fundraising tasks etc. Thus, due to personal safety considerations, Aswat members have requested their names not to be disclosed All of Aswat members work voluntarily for the Group develoment and advancement except for two of our members, the Group Coordinator and the Information and Publication Coordinator. Beside their voluntarily work for the group, they are paid for their specific jobs for the Group as part of our mission to support and empower women. |
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