Editorial

RutgersWPF Pakistan News

Life Skills Based Education Learning Forum

HANDS Team organized the Life Skills Based Education Learning Forum on 19th December 2011 at Karachi, with the collaboration of Rutgers WPF and Government of Pakistan. A huge assembly of educators, students, parents, District Government officials, HANDS and Rutgers WPF staff, INGOS, NGOS and media representatives participated in the learning forum.

The forum was conducted by the student from Matiari, whose hard work, preparation and confidence ensured the success of the event. Students, who had benefitted through LSBE, shared their success stories, and overview of LSBE was given by LSBE trained teachers from Hala, Matiari. An inspiring Role play theater and documentary for LSBE was shown. A panel of experts, comprising of EDO Education, Matiari, Director Education, EDO Health, Matiari, and Country Representative, Rutgers WPF, and LSBE students, answered the queries from audience.

Panelists, stakeholders and participants appreciated the efforts of HANDS and Rutgers WPF and recommended the implementation of this model in the other districts of Sindh.

Information Minister for the Government of Sindh, Shazia Marri, commended the students for conducting the forum successfully and appreciated the confidence of the students. She committed cooperation from government and facilitation to the stakeholders.

MoU signing ceremony with CSOs under Parwan

Rutgers WPF Pakistan signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 13 Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Quetta and 10 in Multan under the Parwan Project. The objective of selecting and signing MOU with CSOs is to build capacity of CSOs on SRHR issues, and to empower CSOs to plan and implement SRH interventions.

A brief presentation on SRHR issues of adolescents in Pakistan was given to the CSOs to improve their understanding. The CSOs were orientated on what is expected of them and where the process of MoU signing would lead.

Heart Connection Team Inspire Tours

In the first week of December, the implementing partners for dance4life, after holding school orientation sessions in different school chains, began Heart Connection Team (HCT) Inspire Tours. The Heart Connection Teams visit different schools to inform students about Life Skills Based Education, and HIV and AIDS, in order to enhance the quality of life of these young people.

The implementing partner in Lahore completed 3 HCT tours in Beachonhouse and Sanjan Nagar public school. Around 500 students were present in each session from the HCT Lahore tours. In Islamabad, 2 HCT tours have been conducted at Roots School System and Hi-Tech School in which 650 students participated.

The students were very inspired and motivated by the HCT and many of them were willing to be volunteers for dance4Life.

District Advisory Panel Formation

In order to form district advisory panel in both the districts of PRWAN (Multan and Quetta) teachers, curriculum experts and students were selected and invited on December 29, 2012, in Multan, and January 6, 2012, in Quetta. Ten participants, in total, were selected in each district to be a part of DAP.

The District Advisory Panel (DAP) is the group of experts from Education, Health, Women, Media, religion and youth to review and provide the technical assistance in the implementation of the Parwan (LSBE II) project, help in integrating LSBE with relevant policies, needs and context of the local communities, and to create an enabling environment for young people to get information regarding their rights.

LSBE Advisory Group

In order to review the LSBE curriculum, the Advisory Group, comprising of teachers, curriculum experts and students, was invited to be a part of a workshop, on December 16-17, 2011, in Quetta. Twenty participants from Multan and Quetta, in total, participated in the workshop and agreed to be a part of the advisory group by formally signing the MoU. The role of the LSBE Advisory Group is to adapt, revise and improve on LSBE (SRH and SGBV) curriculum for Parwan.

Packard Foundation’s Monitoring visit to Sanghar

Packard Foundation (PF) carried out its first monitoring visit to district Sanghar on December 14-15, 2011, to observe the ‘Aagahee se Aagay’ (Empowering Girls Transforming Communities) project activities in the field, to get the community’s insight about the project and need of life skills education. The PF monitoring team comprised of two members, Dr. Yasmeen Qazi - the Country Representative PF, and Dr. Iftikhar Ahmad.

The PF team had a project progress briefing meeting with the teams of SAFWCO and Rutgers WPF at SAFWCO’s Hyderabad office. The team then headed towards Shahdadpur where the PF team conducted a focus group discussion (FGD) with 40 community members, including girl students, out of school girls, parents and teachers. The FGD was meant to seek community insight regarding significance of girls’ education, parents’ perspective on the trend of early marriages and parents’ feedback with regard to previously taught workbook contents. In the FGD’s with parents the need to activate Parents teachers association (PTA) in school was emerged in order to sensitize other members in the community on life skills education.

On the second day the PF team undertook a visit to the Girls Higher Secondary School, Shahdadpur. A meeting was held with 2 master trainers and 8 teachers trained on life skills and economic empowerment contents of the workbook. Dr. Yasmeen Qazi was keen to know the principal and teachers perspective on the workbook contents, their teaching experience and interaction with students. It was encouraging to see that Master Trainers and teachers, despite of all the challenges in implementation of the project, were highly enthusiastic in continuing the new workbooks with students. Teachers appreciated the recent teachers training but recommended that the long duration of Training of Teachers (TOTs) should be reduced.

Learning Work Trajectory Workshop

A three days National learning forum was organized in Karachi on December 22-24. Total 15 participants from the partner organizations attended the workshop, which was designed and facilitated by Ms. Kausar Saeed. The objective of the workshop was to define sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and its values in local context, explore social determinants of SRHR for SRHR Movement building.

The partner organizations defined SRHR in their own organizational context to get a holistic definition of SRHR. Core SRHR values were identified by the participants through an exercise of individual story telling where the participants reflected on their feelings, thoughts and positions on SRHR issues. Group work was carried out to highlight social determinants of SRHR i.e. poverty and socio economic status, violence and discrimination, Gender norms, Public policy and the law, Cultural norms, access to affordable, culturally appropriate health services. A tool of organizational assessment was introduced to see what kind of potentials and expertise the organizations possess to contribute towards SRHR movement building.

To know about the essence of movements building, two progressive movements’ videos about students’ and peasants’ land movement in Pakistan were screened by the workshop participants.

Meetings

Consultative Meeting on Rutgers WPF’s Research Study

Subsequent to the Research Study analysis on “Domestic Violence Against Women- Prevalence and Men’s Perception in PGRN Districts of Pakistan”, Gender Based Violence (GBV) department of Rutgers WPF arranged a consultative meeting with a technical group to share preliminary finding of the Research Study on December 16, 2011, in Islamabad.

The objective of the meeting was to share the findings with a panel of experts to seek their input in order to validate the findings as well as to discuss and reinforce advocacy efforts before disseminating the complete report. Total 13 participants from organizations working on gender, women rights and research fields attended the event. Programme manager Kanwal Qayyum presented the qualitative study findings while the qualitative study findings were presented by Rutgers WPF GBV advisor Ms. Rachel. The participants gave recommendation to further elaborate the analysis from different aspects to highlight the insensitive behavior of the society against women before dissemination and launch of final report of the report study.

Advocacy follow-up meeting on youth friendly services

AwazCDS, in collaboration with Rutgers WPF, organised an advocacy follow up meeting on youth friendly services (YFS), with the District Project Steering Committee (DPSC) members on November 30, 2011. There were 9 participants, including representatives from Health Department, Multan, and media. The discussion focused on the provision of quality health services for adolescent and how adolescents may be able to access such health services. A formal request was submitted to the Health Department to dedicate a space for youth friendly service in all health facilities in Multan, including THQ, BHU or DHQs.

A committee on advocacy follow up was also formed, comprising of members chosen from the DPSC. The Advocacy Committee members were given details on their roles and responsibilities, which includes the responsibility to have follow-up activities on YFS at the district level and advocacy efforts at the provincial level.

Rutgers WPF Pakistan’s 6-monthly review and planning meeting

Rutgers WPF Pakistan held its 6-monthly Review and Planning meeting on December 20, 2011 at Karachi. Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation (PME) department facilitated the meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to share major achievement, challenges faced and lessons learned, as well as to share planned targets for the next six months.

PSO Quarterly meeting

PSO Quarterly meeting was held on December 24, 2011, in Karachi. The meeting was held to finalize the dates among PSO- Partner Organizations for PCM training, proposal writing workshop, movement building workshop, consultative meetings for resource mobilization strategy, and communication & dissemination strategy.

Expressions

Honourably dead

(The Express Tribune Blogs) December 24, 2011

We celebrated a year of violence in Pakistan by offering 675 girls at the altar of honour. Ismat Parveen (whose name means ‘dignity’ and ‘honour’) married a man she wanted to, and because she didn’t want to divorce him, she was shot to death – by her brother. A young woman by the name of Hajil Mai was axed by her husband earlier last month because he accused her of having an affair with the neighbour. He killed her with an axe in the name of honour. With an axe. She is just one victim amongst the many who die in the name of honour everyday in Pakistan.

What is sad is that the number 675 is just a reported figure. Much as the human rights organisations try to sum up the number of peoplewho are being affected by these atrocities, there are thousands of cases that go unheard and unnoticed. Are we proud of the Pakistani man who has to kill his wife/daughter/sister to prove he is honourable enough to be alive?

The question now ultimately becomes whether a man’s honour is more important than a woman’s life. Put the matter of whether or not the woman is guilty of adultery aside. Leave alone the possibility that she may have brought honour or dishonour to her family. Is her life really so insignificant that none of our legislators, politicians and religious authorities care to really take up this issue and put an end to these barbaric and murderous acts of sexism?

Why is it that we are easily able to pass high-cash budgets for ministers and their protocols, to debate session after session what a certain province has to be named, but we cannot find a simple consensus to an idea that a man cannot kill a woman, even if he feels she has done injustice to him?

Here’s another fun fact that may or may not be related to how we continue to treat our women: Pakistan’s literacy rate has improved. It is now over 50%. Apparently education isn’t helping.

Is it increasing religious fundamentalism that is at work? Does this mean we can quote religion, peers, grandparents, and folk-tales to get away with murder and prove just how important it is for a man to keep firm control over his woman?

We’ve legitimised men to be more powerful, we’ve let them become leaders of everything and we have refused our women the right to question – or even think about questioning. Instead of creating a society where violence against women is taken seriously, we are somehow teaching our boys to grow up to be men who consider it okay to dominate a woman. Because there is little legal framework, and social protection offered to a battered woman, it’s easy for any man to accuse a wife/sister/daughter/mother of ‘ dishonouring’ him and ending her life.

We need these murderers behind bars. We need to stop beating about the bush and create a hard-line for these people who think that attacking the vulnerable makes them more powerful, more ‘honourable’. The bodies of innocent dead women piling up are enough reason for a serious need of a simple law; you kill a woman over your honour, you serve jail time. This law should be based on the simple rule that if you take the law into your own hands, you go behind the bars.

We need a society that can understand and empathise with an individual for the sake of humanity and not because they belong to a certain sex.

Instead we are stuck in a world where the general image of man is a glorious muscular superhero that can save the woman from a burning building. Maybe it is time for that image to change to that of a man who, in all his muscular, superheroic glory, can save a woman from himself.

Published in The Express Tribune Blogs, Dec 24, 2011.
For online edition visit the link: http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/9482/honourably-dead/