We are not an organisation that started with a gender perspective, but it quickly became apparent that this cross-cutting issue was impacting our work deeply. As a small social enterprise, we lacked the resources to employ a gender expert and were not sure where to start to address gender. This toolkit provided an ideal approach to implementing gender inclusivity across our organisation.

We conducted a gender audit within our organisation, and analysed the gender split according to decision making versus non decision making positions, salaries and more. We realised that as an organisation we can do more to be gender equal, inclusive and diverse. We are hiring new coaches in November, and want to minimise gender bias in our hiring process. When we advertise the positions, we want applicants to know that all positions within our organisation are equally accessible by all genders. 

We used the Team section of the toolkit (Composition, Recruitment), as well as the Program section (Marketing and Advertising to recruit entrepreneurs). We are, however, only at the start and there may never be an end point. I personally found the Glossary of key terms to be very helpful, because I am not very familiar with a lot of the terms relating to gender, including gender itself. We also used the content map to further explore different sections, and look at suggested strategies and frameworks. I am interested and excited to continue to use this toolkit within our organisation and see the results.

The challenges that we have and keep encountering relate to the cultural and power dynamics within the Myanmar context. For example, women employees cannot go on a field trip alone as they believe it is dangerous. This can limit their ability to take on certain roles.

We are currently testing our new Job Postings that have been edited to be more gender inclusive, so that we can see whether this will allow us to hire more gender diverse, skilful team members, compared to the old style of post.

Choose an individual within your organisation who can function as the primary gender specialist and ensure that a gender lens is applied. It is not necessary to try and solve every gender issue at once, but having a leader in the room who is explicitly responsible for helping others consider the issue helps the organisation change over time, which is a more sustainable approach. We chose our organisation’s Human Resource Assistant for our organisation’s journey because I think she is the one who communicates the most with staff and candidates. She also cares about gender inclusivity.