The Institute for Women's Studies and Research has been working since its foundation in 1986 to support and encourage the participation of women in policy making and planning and to promote the status of women in Iran. I worked with the IWSR, supported by the British Embassy in Iran on a programme to develop advocacy skills among women civil society activists.

During the last few years the number of civil society groups in Iran has increased substantially. Women have played a key role in this increase in activism and are taking on leadership roles within the NGO movement. Many NGOs are working to improve the position of women within Iranian society.

A major barrier to women's activism is a lack of skills and confidence required for successful advocacy, including lobbying, communication and working effectively with others. As Iranian women have become more active within civil society they identified a need for capacity building in this area to enable them to work effectively to benefit themselves and other women in society.

With the IWSR I devised a training programme in lobbying and advocacy skills for activists from a range of women's rights, human rights, environmental, research, health, cultural and social welfare organisations from Tehran, Isfahan, Zanjan, Hamedan, Arak, Gorgan, Urumieh and Yazd. Participants ranged in age from mid twenties to mid sixties.

The course used case studies and role play exercises which had been developed in partnership with Iranian women activists to ensure that they were grounded in participants' experiences. The course involved extensive group work in order to encourage co-operation between participants from different backgrounds. This was an extremely successful element of the curse and despite the very different backgrounds and views of the participants the working atmosphere during the workshop sessions was extremely friendly and productive.

Further training workshops, including a training of trainers workshop are planned for late 2004/2005.