WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN DECISION-MAKING AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL
Organised by
National Women Council
VENUE: Pamplemousses Village Hall
12 - 19 August 2008
Vimi Ghoorah/Roshnee Ramphal/
Naren Sukurdeep
NPCC
Objectives of Project
• To set up networks of women group leaders who would participate actively in decision-making on issues that affect their livelihoods in their respective community
– To provide women with knowledge and skills in problems and needs identification at the Regional Level
– To provide women with advocacy skills in promote their participation in policy making at the Regional level related to poverty alleviation and health
– To build up solidarity and alliances with other stakeholders in the pursuit of common goals at the community level
Capacity Building
Resource Person
from National Productivity and Competitiveness Council(NPCC)
Training | Target | Methodology |
Training in LogFrame Analysis and Project Writing | Facilitators from NWC | • Classroom sessions will include visualisation techniques/ppt presentation/group work • Participatory Rural Assessment tool for problems and needs identification adapted during Field visits to deprived areas for practical sessions / filming / interviews • Knowledge management using internet (if available) • Presentation of Case Studies using ppt • Role play • Group discussions • Team building. • Language: Creole • Handouts : English |
Advocacy and Community Health | 160 Leaders from Women Associations | |
Advocacy and Poverty Alleviation | 160 Leaders from Women Associations |
Training in LogFrame Analysis and Project Writing – 1 Week
• Introduction to Project Cycle Management (PCM) and Logical Framework Analysis (LFA)
• Stakeholder Analysis
• Problems Identification and Analysis
• Objective Analysis
• Strategy Analysis
• Developing the Logical Framework Matrix
• Activity Scheduling
• Resource Scheduling
• Project Writing
It is expected that at the end of the training session, participants (NWC Facilitators) will be able to:
• Learn to guide key actors/stakeholders in
• Ensuring relevance of the actions by assessing
– the relevance of the problems to needs and constraints of the community and to those of the target groups and final beneficiaries in particular
– Demonstrating the effectiveness and feasibility of the action by assessing
– the problem identification and analysis
– the proposed activities (practicality and consistency in relation to the objectives, purpose and expected results).
– the role and involvement of all stakeholders and proposed partners.
– Ensuring Sustainability of the action by assessing
– the main assumptions and risks, before the start up and throughout the implementation period.
– Assessment of the identification of long-term sustainable impact on the target groups and final beneficiaries.
• Contribute in making use of the LogFrame as a tool to prepare, and submit feasible project proposals (to DCP)
Training in Advocacy and Community Health
1 Week
• Problem Solving Techniques
• Brainstorming techniques
• Visualisation techniques
• How to enhance cooperation among stakeholders
• Focus Group Discussions (Field Visit)
• Advocacy skills (leadership, self-esteem and self-confidence; communication, influencing skills and public speaking)
• Team Building
• Negotiation Skills
• Content Focus : Community Health Issues
Training in Advocacy and Poverty Alleviation
1 Week
• Problem Solving Techniques
• Brainstorming techniques
• Visualisation techniques
• How to enhance cooperation among stakeholders
• Focus Group Discussions (Field Visit)
• Advocacy skills (leadership, self-esteem and self-confidence; communication, influencing skills and public speaking)
• Team Building
• Negotiation Skills
• Content Focus : Poverty Alleviation
What is Advocacy?
• Advocacy is problem solving used:
– To protect rights or change unfair discriminatory or abusive treatment to fair, equal, and humane treatment
– To improve services, gain eligibility for services or change the amount or quality of services to better meet the needs of an individual
– To remove barriers which prevent full access to full participation in community life
Why Choose Advocacy?
• Progress - change for the better - will not happen without advocacy.
• Advocacy is the tool citizens use in our democracy to bring about improvements.
• Major changes in the laws, the service system, and public attitudes in recent years.
• People have a right to fully participate in all aspects of life.
• Awakening begins, with great effort and behind-the-scenes preparation, because people have decided for themselves it is time to use advocacy for change.
Why Choose Advocacy?
• The reputation of advocacy, and advocates, who work on behalf of the rights of people will suffer or improve depending on our advocacy approach.
Types of Advocacy
• There is no "best approach" to solving an advocacy problem. An effective advocate uses those techniques which are most effective in each situation.
• Each advocacy situation is unique and relationships of the parties are unique.
• The experienced advocate will gather facts, confer with others, analyze the situation and determine the most effective method of intervention.
• Depending on how the situation develops, the strategy and techniques of the advocate may change.
Types of Advocacy
• Self-advocacy
• Mediation
• Complaint and grievance process
• Regulatory agencies.
• Legal assistance
• Legislative action
• Print and electronic media
• Protest and civil disobedience
Types of Advocacy
• Community advocacy - also known as "systems advocacy" - is another important function of the advocate.
• Systems advocacy influences social and political systems to bring about changes for the benefit of groups of people.
Types of Advocacy
• There are a variety of activities which fall within general self-advocacy techniques, which allow individuals to bring about resolution of their own concerns.
• Self-advocates gather advice and information and take action to resolve a particular issue.
• Self-advocacy skill training, publications, and information and referral lines commonly support self-advocacy.
Types of Advocacy
• When self-advocates feel their efforts aren't enough to resolve an issue, mediation techniques may bring both parties to a settlement which works. Ideally, both parties emerge from mediation with an agreement and a working relationship.
• In some cases, an individual can obtain a satisfactory resolution by using an agency complaint and grievance process. Particularly where a public service is involved, there is usually a grievance process which can be used.
Types of Advocacy
• Advocates can also seek help from regulatory agencies. Regulatory agencies, broadly defined, include agencies which are required by law to oversee a service or facility, but also those who contract with others to provide a service. If an advocate is seeking to have a problem corrected, the agency or individual responsible for enforcing regulations or a contract can be helpful.
• Where serious concerns aren't addressed, an advocate may seek legal assistance to take the concern through the administrative hearing or civil court process. This can be costly. However, sometimes free legal services or volunteer lawyers can be found.
Types of Advocacy
• Where the law isn't addressing a problem, or public resources aren't adequate, legislative action may be necessary.
• For advocates who know how to work effectively with the press, print and electronic media bring issues to the attention of the public. This may help individuals who suffer injustice, and also address larger public issues. However, the media are independent, and won't necessarily read a situation as you do. Care must be taken to avoid unfavorable publicity.
Types of Advocacy
• Sometimes, protest and civil disobedience calls attention to issues, and places pressure on officials to make needed changes. Peaceful and orderly public protest is protected by the constitution. Civil disobedience, on the other hand, is the violation of the law to make a point or generate sympathy for a cause. It can be effective, as it was in the civil rights era, but those involved must be willing to risk fines and even jail to make their point.
• Community advocacy - also known as "systems advocacy" - is another important function of the advocate. Systems advocacy influences social and political systems to bring about changes for the benefit of groups of people.
What make an advocate?
• Objectivity
• Independence
• Sensitivity & Understanding
• Persistence & Patience
• Knowledge & Judgment
• Assertiveness
• Ethics & Respect for Others
What make an advocate?
1) Objectivity
• An advocate listens and evaluates information objectively. As an advocate, you must know and recognize your own prejudices and tendencies. How effective you are as an advocate will in large part be determined by the degree of objectivity you can bring to a situation.
• The degree of confidence or suspicion you have in the system, and your belief in the potential of positive change, will affect your approach to advocacy and how you interpret situations and issues you encounter. Think about what your attitudes are toward the system - individuals, providers, agencies, service consumers - and constantly reexamine your attitudes in the light of what you see.
•
What make an advocate?
2) Independence
• To effectively and credibly advocate for others you must exercise independent judgment.
3) Sensitivity & Understanding
• An advocate conveys interest and empathy. You will get more information and a more accurate reading of what others want if you can communicate that you are listening. Good communication skills are essential.
What make an advocate?
4) Persistence & Patience
• An advocate is determined and secure enough in your position to weather storms, deal with setbacks, and maintain energy over time.
5) Knowledge & Judgment
• You must understand what to ask for, whom to ask, and be able to exercise judgment about what is reasonable, and what isn't. Knowledge and judgment develop over time, with experience.
What make an advocate?
• 6) Assertiveness
An advocate is polite, but firm. You need to have a good working relationship with others, but they must not control you.
• 7) Ethics & Respect for Others
An advocate respects the privacy and confidentiality of others, and respects the basic rules of ethical conduct, to be effective and to maintain credibility.
• Advocates must:
Be culturally sensitive. Provide language accommodations. Adhere to a code of confidentiality. Refrain from abusive conduct. Be trustworthy and honest. Resolve personal conflicts of interest.
Identifying Your Biases
• Ask the opinion of others you trust.
• Take seriously any suggestions made that you're biased.
• Be respectful.
• Listen to the "other side".
• Avoid Us vs. Them thinking.
• Stay connected with those for whom you are advocating.
Identifying Your Biases
• All people develop attitudes, preferences and biases. However, in order to be an effective advocate, you must be able to recognize your own attitudes, preferences, and biases. If you don't your attitudes are likely to interfere with your judgment. You could take positions which reflect your biases, rather than the choices of the people for whom you advocate. You may interpret the actions of others cynically, or naively, and thereby lose your ability to work effectively for the interests of others.
Working out your biases.
• It is important to recognize your biases, and to periodically evaluate whether they are interfering with your judgment. The first step to not letting bias interfere with your judgment is to accept that it's there and decide to deal with it.
Recognize that your bias may be affecting your judgment.
• Ask yourself the following questions:
• *Am I bothered by this situation more than other people?
• *Am I attributing motives to others without evidence?
• *Do I strongly believe, or disbelieve, what I'm being told without compelling evidence?
Identifying Your Biases
• Ask the opinion of others you trust.
• Ask an objective person to interpret the facts. How does he or she see the situation? Just give the facts. Don't tell your consultant what you want them to see.
•
• Take seriously any suggestions made that you're biased.
• Even if you know that you're right, you may be too close to the situation to see solutions. If you appear biased to others, there is a good chance that some bias is motivating you, and perhaps clouding your judgment.
Identifying Your Biases
• Are you acting because you want to "get" someone. You can have strong feelings, and take decisive action, but avoid acting on your biases.
• Be respectful.
• Speak with respect even when you disagree with someone. Accusations and name-calling polarize discussions, and don't lead to solutions. By showing disrespect for the other side, you give credence to any biases people have against you. If you engage in name-calling and accusations, you may provoke petty, demeaning, or even unscrupulous responses, which will further justify your own biases. When those with other views respond to you in kind, you may feel: "A ha - I knew you were like that!"
• Listen to the "other side".
• Often if you listen to what the "other side" is saying, you will find more common ground. You may discover that the "other side" is not altogether wrong. Even if you continue to disagree on most matters, you will likely discover that you and others are motivated by many of the same values, attitudes, and prejudices.
Identifying Your Biases
• Avoid Us vs. Them thinking.
• When you advocate strongly and encounter resistance, it is difficult not to think of those resisting you as "them" or "the other side". This is "positional" negotiation or advocacy - one position versus another position. Those who have different views from your own are people like you in some ways and different in others, but still people. Remember that you may meet "them" another day, with another issue, and it makes sense to start the work of building a relationship of mutual respect now.
• Stay connected with those for whom you are advocating.
• Make sure you are asking for what others want. Your strategy may change, but your focus should be clear and remain constant. Check periodically that your efforts are collaborative and everyone is in agreement with the approach.
Advocacy Pitfalls
• Advocacy is not:
– substituting your beliefs as an advocate for the beliefs of others
– creating conflict for its own sake a chance to get even for past wrongs done to you
– an opportunity to make yourself feel powerful at the expense of others.
Advocacy and Poverty Alleviation
Mere Theresa / Bois Marchand / Route Cocoterie
• Situational Analysis
• Key problems
• Causes-and –Effects
• Actions
– Prioritisation
– Action Plan
• Concept Paper
Methodology
• Split in Groups based on understanding of the region and its community
– Mere Theresa
– Bois Marchand
– Route Cocoterie
• Each group makes a situational analysis on the poverty issue
– What is the poverty issues we are talking about?
– Can we elaborate on them [ specifics, extent, who are affected, what is happening, etc]?
– Generate list of problems identified
• Relate the problems in a cause-and-effect relationship
• What actions can be taken and why?
DATE | MODULE/ACTIVITY - MORNING | MODULE/ACTIVITY - AFTERNOON |
Monday 30 June 2008 | Theory – Advocacy and Poverty Alleviation | (Problem identification) and Building the Concept PaperBuilding a Plan of Action |
Wednesday 2nd July 2008 | Field visit to three poor localities – To set out at 9.30 a.m. Filming and interviewing of inhabitants- Cité Mère Teresa- Bois Marchand- Route Cocoterie | |
Thursday 3rd July 2008 | Preparation of presentations – indoors | Advocacy skills |
Tuesday 8th July 2008 | Mock – Advocacy | Preparing the Concept PaperPreparation of Plan of Action |
Wednesday 9th July 2008 | Advocacy in the Community – FieldEither at Bois Marchand or Cité Mère Teresa | Setting up of an Advocacy sub-networkSum up and Wrap up |
No comments:
Post a Comment