Rotary Bhawan, Thapathali, Kathmandu, Bagmati, Nepal

GG2098538 – Training Violence Against Women Advocates in Nepal

GG2098538 – Training Violence Against Women Advocates in Nepal

Global Grant No: GG2098538
Grant Title: Training Violence Against Women Advocates in Nepal
Grant Status:
Starting Date:09/11/2020
Closed Date:
Budget: US$ 122,500

Host Primary Contact: Bishnu Subedi, RC Kathmandu, RID 3292
International Primary Contact: Laura Tilrico, RC Newberg, RID 5100

Objectives of the Project:
The process of collaboration in a Rotary grant is truly unique and differentiates it greatly from other funding organizations. Rotarians in the international and host districts have provided valuable insight and have helped us through their questions to create a better application. This grant document includes updates, changes and answered questions.

Requested documents:

COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nka_qeuOLS_3uOl3pkVrBPorefjPCErI/view?usp=sharing

PEACE AREA OF FOCUS ATTACHMENT
In addition to training community members, this global grant will address these Peace Area of Focus goals:
-Enhancing the capacity of individuals and communities to transform conflict and build peace.
-Providing services that help integrate vulnerable populations into society
We have provided this supplemental document on intersection of Violence Against Women and Peace. The grant and all accompanying documents were read and approved by two Cadre of Technical Advisor Members, Dr. Dan Shanit and Ms. Simona Pinton Esquire.
LINK:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZyYF3QSSecID225y6dbsdPfcVG0Enq5D/view?usp=sharing

SHORT VIDEO INTRODUCING THE GRANT
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L9q802ZB9B7oz1NyJWSVTHidGl08J7kN/view

LETTER OF SUPPORT TO RC OF KATHMANDU PDG MIKE CARUSO
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1LH12dW9t1PrBgLGWYS-9DSHibJYfzpjC

LETTER OF SUPPORT TO RC OF KATHMANDU PP LAURA TILRICO
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1LH12dW9t1PrBgLGWYS-9DSHibJYfzpjC

PROPOSED TIMELINE OF GRANT ACTIVITIES
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U-Be9LFHL_uLpl2fkKaPI5F39c94ozOk/view
This information is also located in the grant within the Grant Activities Chart, and we are aware that while the actual dates will need to be altered due to COVID travel restrictions, the general timeline remains the same. The proposed timeline for the grant can be moved back as far as needed (2021 is the best prediction).

PROPOSED ITINERARY NEPAL CAPACITY BUILDING WORKSHOP
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mR9qv2F9q7_Wm2yQTYn4Bj2CqINB5FjSXk02nw-hmkk/edit

GENERAL OBJECTIVE
This global grant will train women’s rights leaders to develop advocacy, communications, and leadership skills, and build a network that enables them to seek measures to both prevent and redress violence against women in order to drastically improve the safety of women in Nepal. Improving women’s security and furthering gender equity are two of the structural transformations Nepal needs to consolidate the gains of the 2006 peace process internally, which is faltering based on lack of participation of women in the peace process, and a peace process which does not uphold fundamental human rights.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Through this training program, women’s groups in Nepal will have the ability to:
1. Foster a better understanding of the evidence-based practices needed to end violence against women and girls
2. Understand the policy options in Nepal to help keep women safer, sooner
3. Form dialogue and cooperation skills between civil society organizations
4. Engage in community mapping to identify skills, resources and structures that can be leveraged to increase capacity of individuals and organizations working to end violence against women in Nepal
5. Strengthen decision making capabilities
6. Learn how to take active roles in building societal resilience, sustaining peace and furthering Nepal’s ongoing development
7. Learn how to set policy objectives, map the process for advocating for that policy, and create a plan for unified action further the identified policy objectives to end violence against women in Nepal
8. Learn how to use media and public speaking opportunities to further women’s security
9. Learn how to deliver violence prevention education sessions
10. Get tools to use in delivering violence educations sessions
11. Identify pathways for discourse between community and government leaders

Every Woman Treaty, Global Health Advocacy Incubator, and Women for Human Rights collectively came up with the needed learning objectives, above. Until we meet with the selected participants, we do not know which of these capacities is already better known to them. We will not be able to do participant scoping and selection until the grant is awarded, because it will take considerable time and would only be relevant if we have the grant funding. We do not anticipate that all 11 objectives will get equal time during the training. Instead, we anticipate that all participants leave with these skills. Some skills will get much more time than others and we will determine this well before the in-person training session based on what skills the participants already have, and which ones they need the most assistance with.

END GOAL
Build leadership capacity among individual leaders while demonstrating the benefits of cooperation and lobbying, which will lead to the formation of a united in-country federation of individual leaders and organizations working together to confront violence against women. Through this training, these leaders and organizations will self-select the objectives that will be the centerpiece of their work to educate policy makers and community members across the nation on how best to end violence against women.

The training session participants will be prepared upon arrival at training to create a strategic action plan, and prepared at the end of training to go forth and implement the strategic action plan. The strategic plan will be prepared during the training workshop.

The training has the following objectives:
–Increase capacity of participants to plan and implement a policy-advocacy campaign
–Understand the policy options in Nepal to help keep women safer, sooner
–Align on a clear policy objective that will be the foundation for a policy-advocacy/education campaign
–Develop a comprehensive and integrated campaign plan that advances the policy objective

We call it a Federation in the application because in the Community Needs Assessment this is what the women’s rights advocates in Nepal stated they needed most in order to increase the safety of women in Nepal – and that they could not make it happen without training and support. All of the work being done in this grant is to lead towards this independent, self-sustaining Federation that advocates jointly to advance women’s rights in Nepal. This Federation will lead to the greater integration of women in decision making structures in Nepal, which is called out by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace and Security as vital for peace and security. Women for Human Rights (WHR) will take a leadership role in this grant, host the part-time coordinator funded in the grant, and seek independent funding for that role to continue after the Rotary grant is finished.

PROJECT SCOPE:
1. 5-day intensive exchange and learning program for 25 civil society leaders working to address/redress violence against women, allowing them to work together as a group to confront violence against women in Nepal and bring their learnings back to their organizations and communities.
2. Followed by 12 months of in-country coordination with a paid staff member who will create a solid network, support system and shared duties between individuals and organizations working to end violence against women.
3. Supported by 6 months of personalized coaching from the Cooperating partners to provide ongoing training and skill refreshers, and resource materials to facilitate the specific objectives they decide to undertake as a group during the in person training program.
4. The trainees will work together to deliver 60 violence prevention education sessions during the 12 months following the training.
5. Coordinator will create methods for collecting and sharing information with the group on a regular basis. Sharing information may be through a blog, forum, or mailing list and will be utilized to update the group on developments, share experiences and practices, and build camaraderie and confidence in the group. The method used for collecting information and survey responses will depend on Internet and computer access and may require in-person meetings.

BENEFICIARIES
A select group of 25 direct beneficiaries will participate in a 5-day training session, all Nepali women’s rights leaders who are working on diverse aspects of ending violence against women in Nepal.
The participant scoping and selection will be led by the Cooperating Organizations in collaboration with the host Rotary Club. Participants will be selected based on their current and future ability to leverage the skills they acquire in the training, with key criteria such as being a committed advocate who will stay in violence against women field and apply in practice what is learned.

The main indicator for the selection of beneficiaries is to pick the already committed advocates who are working in the field for some time now, and are known to be active in the field. This will ensure that irrespective of the participation in the training they will continue to work in the field. The project emerged from the need assessment where the women rights advocates and organizations already working in this area requested us to deliver the training (this is included within the grant, and we have also included the relevant organizations). Therefore, being committed in the field is one of the criteria of selection of the participations so that we get the ones who will continue to apply in practice what is learned after the training.

This number of beneficiaries may look less in the first sight and may raise the issues of ‘value for money’. However, this is a capacity building initiative of a world class standard. This can be compared with the Rotary Peace Fellowships where this investment is done for a single individual. These individuals are expected to play their part in their society to contribute to peace when they return. In this case, it is a group/cohort of people who are trained together and after the training there is sustained effort to bring them together to work for a common cause. The focus is on the prevention of violence against women and furthering women’s rights in Nepal, with the training emphasis on leadership and advocacy to bring their issues to the forefront and be more impactful in their work.

The project has therefore provisioned for a part-time coordinator to be based at the cooperating organization Women for Human Rights (WHR) who will follow-up with the trained advocates and help organize follow-up activities such as community building events, workshops, and education sessions. The details of these will be addressed in the other questions below. WHR will take a leadership role in this grant, host the part-time coordinator funded in the grant, and seek independent funding for that role to continue after the Rotary grant is finished.

Ultimately, this grant supports women’s rights advocates already working to end violence against women and girls in Nepal. With this grant funding, they will come together and form a national Federation with the goal of ending violence against women in Nepal. This is a self-identified goal, and better outlined in the community need assessment. The Federation will be composed of the men and women who already work on this topic in Nepal and include at a minimum 5-10 key women’s rights organizations. The Federation will come to the training as a group of separate NGO leaders and join together to form a fully formed entity to carry out women’s rights work together, instead of separately, in Nepal. Through their ongoing relationship with Every Woman Treaty, they will be connected to resources and funding opportunities on an ongoing basis and hence continue to benefit from the global alliance.
–Cross-sectoral participants representing single and married women, widows, conflict affected women, youth activists, females in policy/politics and /or journalism, LGBTQ, and Dalit, Madhesi and indigenous women.
–Cross-sectoral representation of organizations in order to strengthen collaboration between organizations and develop or strengthen a coalition for advocacy.

While this is the universe to pick the participants and we desire all these categories to be represented, these categories are not exhaustive and exclusive. Therefore, the selection of participants is a budgeted activity in the grant so that we have the right mix of participants. In the selection, we will seek NGO representatives whose organizations represent these groups so that no communities are left out of the planning and activities that result from this training. It may not be that each group has a specific representative, but that an NGO that works with youth activists, for example, can help us decide if we need a youth representative and who the right person would be – OR if the youth NGO representative would be best to serve as the participant to make sure this category is represented. As we have talked about in other questions, we want to ensure that this group of participants is already committed and working in this field, and not have participants who may easily change fields or move on, so this is a bigger part of the selection criteria than the categories. In addition to the NGO leaders, having government and media leaders involved as participants will also benefit the outcome greatly.

Indirect beneficiaries include the civil society organizations who now have a trained advocate with access to a strong in-country federation committed to ending violence against women through robust, sustained engagement of policymakers, media and community members

Indirect beneficiaries will not be selected. Most of the direct beneficiaries, the training participants, will be leaders from active civil society organizations working on violence against women issues. Other beneficiaries/participants will also represent some organizations or institutions with influence over violence against women issues. These organizations will be indirect beneficiaries as they will receive highly trained leaders bring new skills and resources to that organization. Villages and other entities will also be indirect beneficiaries because they will benefit from these leaders bringing violence prevention education sessions to them. And ultimately, the women and girls of Nepal will be beneficiaries when violence is effectively dissipated.

The host club to identify the objectives as mentioned – after the grant is awarded and pursue its achievement though the activities that will follow.