Advocacy Planning workshop for coalition members

POURAKHI Nepal with the support of CARAM Asia organized three days Advocacy Planning Workshop for Coalition Members on 15-17 April 2021 at Kathmandu.

The major objective of organizing workshop was to create Communication channel for advocacy, Formation of thematic task force on Migration and HIV issues, and creation of referral mechanism for advocacy.

During the workshop current scenario on Migration and HIV was discussed.

Following issues were discussed:

-HIV Infected people also have right to work. However, there is no enabling environment for the HIV infected peoples in Nepal. It is due to social stigma and traditional harmful practices.

-Advocacy is supposed to start through local level, since local government is independent to formation of local policies and it is right body for proper implementation of existing laws and policies.

-We need to talk about literacy.

-No one of the migrant’s worker are getting proper counseling.

-Nepal have some good policies but implementation mechanism is poor.

-Sex workers and HIV infected people have no department to look for in Nepal.

–Representation of vulnerable communities such as LGBTIQ, HIV infected population, Migrant workers in decision making level is week. Hence, there is no oneto raise the issues of those communities.

-To talk about representation, identification of specific community is not proper in Nepal. So, representative from same community would count better to raise the voice of the communities.

-We see lacking in leadership from second generation. So, it is important to take leadership by youth.

Existing services:

During discussion existing services was also listed so that will help on referral mechanism.

Service providers for HIV was listed for different level, private, Government, Public, CSOs and others. This was listed to see the how many referral mechanisms existed in Nepal. At the end MAP for referral mechanism was designed.

Advocacy mechanism:

During the discussion, participants identified the existing gaps on policies and services. At the end of the workshop, coalition members formed common advocacy mechanism based on following key questions:

What is the advocacy address for?

How to do it?

When to do it?

Who will take leadership on it?

Major steps for advocacy:

The Outcome of the workshop is the formation of advocacy plan where following steps are identified.

Step 1: Identification and training

Step 2: Narrative reform

Step 3: Capacity Building

Step 4: Knowledge harvesting

Step 5: Awareness and empowerment

Step 6: restructuring of service mechanism

Coalition members:

Following coalition members participated in the workshop.

  • Blue Diamond Society (BDS)
  • ASIAN Forum
  • SWASA
  • CAC-N
  • Dristi Nepal
  • Women ACT
  • WOREC
  • National Network for Safe Migration (NNSM)
  • POURAKHI Nepal
  • Purple Foundation