Peace Fellowships for Women (IPS)
From June 2005 to June 2007, the Institute for Peace Studies (IPS) hosted the UNESCO/Suzanne Mubarak/Japan-Egypt Friendship Research Fellowships for the Empowerment of Women in Peace and Gender Studies. This 2 year fellowship program was designed to offer the chance to 20 women researchers to conduct research in the Library of Alexandria, providing them with all the resources and references they need as well as assigning university professors in the field of their research to supervise their work.
Being the administrator of this program, and being the academic arm of the Suzanne Mubarak Women’s International Peace Movement, IPS realized the importance of engaging women researchers, who are willing to work in the area of gender and peace.
In peace and conflict studies, Gender is a major component that is largely ignored in our communities. People in our region do not fully comprehend the concepts of “Gender”, “Women Empowerment” or “Peacebuilding”. IPS, as an institute interested in peace and women’s issues has noted, over the past few years, that there is a lack of knowledge of these areas especially as to how this issues impact the daily life of people in our region, especially women.
Realizing the above, and bearing in mind President Obama’s speech to the Muslim World in 2009, which emphasized the importance of building and developing positive relations between Muslim countries and the rest of the world; Muslim woman’s rights; women’s active role in promoting dialogue peace, IPS designed this program to meet the requirements mentioned. This program focuses on promoting the concept of gender and gender studies so that the selected candidates of this new fellowship can benefit from their research and transmit their knowledge to their communities upon the completion of this program thus, helping in bridging the gap between Muslim women and women in the west.
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