EMBASSY DAMASCUS PROPOSALS FOR SMALL GRANTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 000143

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

S/GWI, NEA/ELA, NEA/PPD

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/18/2020
TAGS: KPAO OEXC KWMN PGOV PREL SY
SUBJECT: EMBASSY DAMASCUS PROPOSALS FOR SMALL GRANTS
INITIATIVE

REF: STATE 00132094

Classified By: Charge d Affairs Charles Hunter for reasons 1.5 b and d.


1. (C) Embassy Damascus requests S/GWI support and funding
for three proposals: "Grassroots
Diplomacy," "Gender Research," and "Empowering Young, Deaf
Women." These programs represent our
first, substantive engagement with independent, grassroots
NGOs in almost five years. With full
funding we believe that S/GWI and Post will advance women's
empowerment and democratic rights on
both macro and micro levels. The Administration's nomination
of the first U.S. Ambassador to
Syria since 2005, represents a ripe moment to advance the
development of Syria's nascent
women's civil society.


2. (SBU) Embassy Damascus recommends the following projects
for S/GWI funding in the following rank order as they
represent the best opportunities for us to create a more
democratic environment for women in Syria. Below are brief
summaries; detailed proposals will be sent via email to
S/WGI. We chose these out of five submissions based on the
credibility of the organization proposing them, their
practicality and potential for near-term, tangible impact,
and their relevance to USG goals in the region.


3. (C) &Grassroots Diplomacy.8 While political peacemaking
has traditionally been the domain of men in Syria, it is
women who bear the responsibility for conflict resolution in
everyday life. These same women pay a heavy price when men
fail to resolve these differences peacefully. To address
this problem, the Syrian International Academy proposes a
course for women professionals focused on mediation,
conflict resolution and respectful debate. Throughout the
year, students in the course will learn how to analyze
different conflicts, thus learning how to sympathize with all
sides in a conflict. Such analysis is non-existent in
Syria,s heavily regimented and antiquated educational system
where critical thinking is discouraged.


4. (C) In a region entrenched in long-term political
conflict, the local organizer, Hind Qabawat (strictly
protect),believes that by working with small groups of 10-15
women drawn from a wide diversity of professionals and social
backgrounds, she can teach students to leverage their
influences inside this traditional, family-focused society to
create voices for peace, understanding and democratic reform.
Post has worked with Ms. Qabawat on a similar course and she
achieved truly transformative results by teaching students
how to ask thought-provoking questions, how to engage in
respectful debate with visiting American students, and how to
use mediation to resolve their differences.


5. (SBU) &Gender Research.8 Women's issues are not widely
covered in the Syrian media. In fact, according to Etana
Press, the ignorance and lack of widespread substantive
research on women's issues has allowed Syrian society to
ignore women's issues and even to excuse its present
treatment of women. The local organization believes that by
educating female Syrian journalists on how to report
appropriately on gender issues in the mainstream media, they
will expand the political and social space in which women can
advocate for change in their lives. The organization
proposes to educate fifteen journalists from both private-
and public-sector media outlets. The participants will
conclude the course by creating a comprehensive report on
gender issues in Syria and will lay down a series of markers
by which women's democratic and social freedoms can be
measured.


6. (SBU) &Empowering Young, Deaf Women.8 The Imma Center
for the Deaf provides education to young women in the poor
Jabal al-Hoss region, and proposes a program to provide
education, training and employment to twenty-four deaf,
under-privileged girls. The additional funding will provide
these women with training in both the individual production
and marketing of their own handicrafts. The twenty-four
young women currently studying at the Center want to develop
economic independence and this program is designed to give
them the knowledge and skills to run a business on a small,
but profitable scale.

HUNTER