Healthlink Worldwide

The project evolution - Adding value to, and linking with, existing interventions

The ideas for this project developed from a long partnership association between AWWD India and Healthlink Worldwide.

It emerged from numerous face-to-face discussions as well as email discussion forums and roundtable events that took place as part of the DFID’s Disability Knowledge and Research Programme (KAR). During these activities WWD activists raised the issue of discrimination not only in government bodies but also in DPOs themselves, which have often been shown to disregard the issues of importance to WWD.

These discussions highlighted that there is also discrimination levied against WWD within the women's movement and by development NGOs. This discussion was further developed when key women activists from AWWD India and other organisations and individuals in the region were introduced through the KAR roundtables, and has since avalanched into a wider discussion with WWD organisations and interested agencies across the region, through email, face-to-face discussions and local focus groups.

AWWD, the regional hub partner, furthered these discussions with Healthlink Worldwide staff in the ensuing months. This project supports this initiative by transforming dialogue about needs into a practical response on a multitude of levels.

In addition, this project builds on the activities and learning from previous project work where the partnerships were cemented. Two DFID funded projects; Communicating for Advocacy (CFA) and Inclusive Communications for Disability (ICD), helped to make the linkages. This project:

• Focuses exclusively on developing the advocacy capacity of a particularly marginalised group (WWD and their organisations where they exist);
• Develops the leadership and research skills of WWD, as well as developing their advocacy capacity;
• Builds on the CFA project by taking the training guide, developed throughout the capacity development process of the CFA project, and works with WWD to adapt this guide to meet their needs;
• Supplements the CFA guide with material that develops the leadership, research and networking skills of WWD;
• Will also strengthen and build lateral relationships. Local level training and advocacy activities will help encourage cross-sector working and contribute to mainstreaming in sectors beyond disability, and
• Has a strong focus on effecting the media representations of the disabled and the legal context of the countries involved which it will help to strengthen between organizations through collaborative working.

In line with the principles of the CSCF
This project contributes to the principles of the Civil Society Challenge Fund (CSCF) and the DFID initiative Realising Human Rights for Poor People by clearly targeting social inclusion. By supporting the capacity development and leadership of WWD to act locally, nationally and regionally, it is creating a force for social change that challenges and calls to account the marginalisation of two key groups: women and disabled people.

Crucially, it empowers WWD and increases their right to participation and involvement in policy and programme decision-making processes, formulation and monitoring. It does this through:

• Rights awareness work with WWD and organisations of WWD;
• Strengthening of organisations of WWD around self-advocacy and representation, research and leadership, and where necessary supporting the development of new organisations lead by WWD, and
• Providing examples and evidence of ways in which other organisations can engage with WWD.

In doing this it will work towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of poverty eradication and gender equality and empowerment, and links with DFID’s priorities/strategies on a regional/country level in the following ways:

• Asia Division's Directory Delivery Plan (which refers to India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh) 2003-2006 identifies social exclusion as a key issue;
• Sri Lanka which promotes the role of civil society and in ensuring effective information flows between donors, human rights groups, lobby groups and the government;
• Bangladesh which seeks to promote better, more effective institutions and improved realisation of human rights, particularly for women experiencing violence, and
• India which includes a focus on greater empowerment of the poor and states' failure to ensure rights of women is a major concern. It particularly aims to help civil society engage in advocacy for more pro-poor laws and policies.

For further details of Healthlink Worldwide’s Creating Spaces programme, contact David Curtis at curtis.d@healthlink.org.uk