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Tawasol (Connections)
06 September 2015

A weekly program aired in 2015 that focused on issues important to woman in all areas of daily life. The program was developed in cooperation with the Italian Cooperation for Development, and funded by the Ministry of Women Affairs (MoWA).

The show was named after the Tawasol Women Resource Centers for women’s empowerment and protection that MoWA has established across Palestine. With the aim of improving women’s socio-economic status and resources, the centers provide training and information to women looking to learn about their rights or seek counseling after incidents of gender-based violence.

Every week, the show featured two new guests in the studio: a representative from one of the MoWA Tawasol Centers, and a man or a woman who had benefited from the assistance and counseling provided by the center in question. This last guest was given assistance with developing a workshop about the rights and issues that he/she had raised about at the Center, giving the rest of the community the opportunity to learn from his/her experiences.

Issues taken up by the program included unemployment, violence against women, and women’s position in the context of inheritance disputes.
It is a relatively new development that Palestinian women are starting to question the status quo of their position in society, and are seeking to address and change the deeply entrenched gender-stereotypes that characterize many aspects of Palestinian life in the private and public spheres.

Hence, the program played an important role in allowing women to voice their questions, concerns and ambitions, and in legitimizing their claims for being offered equal rights as their male counterparts.