26^th January 2020, Jalalabad city. At the start of the Afghanistan Urban Safety and Security Programme (AUSSP) in 2018, female trainers could not dare to stand in front of men and moderate training or workshop due to cultural restrictions on women in Jalalabad. Following strong social mobilization by the AUSSP team, this is now possible. Female social organizers have now trained twenty male municipal staff in Urban Safety and Security and Community Policing

The female trainer in Jalalabad during the training of municipal staff

“Many people believe that women are not able to work as men but it’s not true, women also have the capacity and can work in different areas in Afghanistan. I am very happy that for the first time I was able to successfully deliver a learning workshop to the male municipal staff” said Maimuna Sahar, a social organizer from the AUSSP programme. Ms. Sahar adds that” still in some areas, culture and family restrictions are imposed on women and prevent them to take full part in social life and urban interventions”

The AUSSP programme has an inclusive capacity building program covering topics such as Urban Development and Urbanization, Urban Safety and Security, Gender, Leadership, Community Policing and Good Governance. Trainings are offered to municipal staff through a learning by doing approach. to improve the quality of living in the cities

AUSSP encourages communities to take part in urban development in close partnership with the municipalities across the eight cities of Afghanistan and emphasizes on equal participation by both men and women equally. So far, a total of 749 training sessions have been conducted for communities and municipality staff involving 9,458 male and 9,195 female participants.