Editorial

It does not take a scientist to figure out that detailed and thorough planning is the key to successful execution of any project, activity or organizational achievement. After all any design if not well thought out at its inception is most certainly paving way for its failure, so most certainly “it pays to plan ahead; after all wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark”. Thus, as the new year commences we are also busy planning; chalking out the minutest of details in each programme and project, so as to be well-prepared for a smooth execution all our activities, and consequently achieve our goal of a better, empowered and sexually informed population, especially youth and women.

Although, most of the month was spent in planning & drafting work plans for the year; with the MFS II planning meeting, the ‘review and planning meetings’ meetings with Aahung and HANDS and the National Planning Workshop (NPW), other activities were also taking place simultaneously; convocations held at Peshawar and Vehari for the formal conclusion of the LSBE School System programme and the Smart Chart Learning Forum amongst others.

In addition to long meetings to plan & review the upcoming year’s project work, January was an active month with the annual audit going on as well as appraisals of the entire staff. The appraisals generated much energy amongst the staff as everyone was candid and open about their work.

Read on for more details, about internal staff updates, new weekly meeting formats and much more!

RutgersWPF Pakistan News

Planning Meetings – MFS 2

With the conclusion of MFS 1, Rutgers WPF is in process of consultations with stakeholders to plan the next 5 years MFS 2 programme in Pakistan. The upcoming programme will be a partnership between three major Dutch Alliances including Rutgers WPF, Dance 4 Life and Choice. In this regard an international team; Ms. Jacquelien Bunt & Ms. Susan van Esch from D4L were in Pakistan to hold the planning meeting on 26th and 27th January 2011 with the Implementing Partners i.e Participatory Integrated Development Society (PIDS) and Awaz Foundation IDS and Awaz CDs, Youth Advocacy Network (YAN) of the new programme in Multan and Quetta. To generate ideas and explore possible partnerships in the new plan, several meetings were also held on 28th and 29th January with National AIDS Control Program (NACP), The Embassy of Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN), UNICEF, UNFPA and Telenor.

A separate consultation was also held with the youth leaders from various youth groups working in Pakistan which includes Youth Advocacy Network (YAN), Youth Parliament of Pakistan (YPP), Y-PEER, Youth Advocacy Panel (YAP) and National Youth Task Force (NYTF) to get their suggestions for a new programme on Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights of young people in Pakistan. These meetings proved highly fruitful and have opened avenues for forging new partnerships while fortifying the old ones to work together for increased SRHR awareness.

EU mission

On January 26th, the European Union Mission comprising of Mr. Dirk Swillens: Deputy Head of Operations, European Commission, Mr. Arshad Rashid: Advisor Social Development, European Commission, and Kanwal Qayyum: Program Manager, RutgersWPF visited Karachi site of ‘Hamara Kal’ Project. This was the first field visit of donor to the project sites. The mission was given a detailed orientation along with progress about the project by Ms. Kanwal. Later Aahung and HANDS also gave a detailed presentation about the progress and challenges of implementation. After the meeting with IPs, the project staff mission visited schools. The first school was Government Girls Secondary School New Ranchore Line; here the donor visited classrooms and initially observed the discussion among students and project coordinator and manger around SRHR curriculum.

This was an interesting interaction as Mr. Drik personally interacted with the students to ask questions like ‘why is it important to know about Sexual rights? And ‘I’m sure your parents came to know about sexual health and rights with a passage of time then why do you want to learn about it right now?’ The students responded these questions very aptly and in a highly knowledgeable manner. They presented multiple responses, such as ’it is their right to know about their body’ and that ‘their parents didn’t have access to knowledge, they did not have opportunity to learn, now time is changing and this a different era’. The EU Mission highly appreciated their responses and claimed that it was clear that these children were smart and intelligent. EU Mission distributed pens in classrooms and presented souvenirs to the Head Masters and school teachers.

After visiting girl’s schools, the mission visited a boy’s school; Agrotech Government Boys Secondary School. The school scouts gave a Guard of honor to the guests. A Whole of School event was planned into that school in which students presented role plays on different themes of new SRHR Curriculum i.e. decision making, infectious disease, health seeking behaviors and self protection. The EU mission delegation was completely satisfied with the students and teachers responses and appreciated their involvement in the activities. They departed by distributing souvenirs amongst the students and teachers at this school too. In turn, as a token of thanks and gratitude each school also presented flowers and ajrak to mission members. Overall, the delegation was completely satisfied and content with the project implementation and progress & left with high regards for RutgersWPF efforts.

Smart Chart Learning Forum

The Smart Chart Learning Forum, organized and arranged by Rozan, was a great seminar on the growth, usage and implementation of the Smart Chart Communication Tool in Pakistan. The panel at the Forum included Dr. Yasmeen from Packard Foundation, Dr. Aslam from HANDS, Insha Hamdani (MSS), Fayyaz Bakir (Communications Specialist), and Nazoora Ali from RutgersWPF.

This Forum was highly productive as major organizations from the health especially sexual health sector were present there to discuss critically the role of communication, the way it is integrated, it’s essentiality and the way to take it forth. Insightful suggestions were coming from the participants while highly informative presentations were given by the panel. The presentations revealed the need to rethink communications role, to break the myths around communication, the successful utilization and implementation of Smart Chart in campaigns and activities and the complete institutionalization of Smart Chart by an organization.

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Education

LSBE Formal School System

To formally conclude the first round of Life Skills Based Education – LSBE programme implemented through subsidy from The Ministry of Foreign Affairs – The Netherlands, WPF with its implementing partners held convocation ceremonies in two target areas; Vehari, and Peshawar and in collaboration with the respective partners Awaz CDS and PVDP. The aim was to acknowledge all the stakeholders i.e. students, teachers, master trainers, heads of school, and District Education Department involved in its successful implementation.

Around 500 students, 86 Teachers and 5 Master Trainers received their recognition certificates whereas schools and principals were awarded with the LSBE friendly Shields. 21 School principals were also awarded with recognition shields, to acknowledge their constant support to the project.

Young graduates of LSBE took a lead in the ceremonies and shared their learning from the LSBE programme through skits, quizzes, speeches and discussions. RutgersWPF will cherish the time and positive efforts of all stakeholders and is looking forward to incorporating those learning in MFS II with further enthusiasm and commitment.

The last formal convocation at Faisalabad was also scheduled during the month but had to be postponed taking in consideration their examination week. It is now going to take place mid-February. These convocations have been a very pleasant and wonderful experience for our organization as it showed the tangible results and differences the LSBE had made in the lives of the students and teachers.

Empowering Girls – Transforming Communities

Population Welfare Department Sindh & Packard Foundation Grantees Meeting, 18th Jan 2011

Sindh and Punjab Partnership Meeting is a forum to leverage this opportunity for maximizing synergies between Population Welfare Departments (PWD) of respective provinces and Packard Foundation Grantees. These forums, over the course of the year have given Packard partners, including RutgersWPF an opportunity to present their work and highlight the areas that need to be linked up with Population Welfare Department and sought support for integrated efforts in FP/RH interventions. In this regard the first meeting of the year 2011 was held on 18th Jan 2011 was chaired by, Secretary Population Department Sindh.

The meeting primarily revolved around updates on the flood response by the PWD-Sindh and the grantees. The opportunities for advocacy efforts in the scenario following the 18th amendment were discussed in order to connect to the potential of policy change that comes with this change. It was also highlighted during the meeting that over the years the demand for FP/RH services has increased and the need of the hour is to collaborate to cater to this demand by the Population Welfare Departments.

Policy Advocacy

PAPAC National Assembly

Rutgers WPF participated in the second bi-annual national assembly of the Pakistan Alliance for Post Abortion Care (PAPAC) held on 13 December 2011 in Karachi. The meeting started with the national updates by the secretariat to give an overall view of the health situation. Rahnuma FPAP has presented the situation of FPAP after the devolution of MOPW in the aftermath of 18th amendment. It was reiterated that there is a dire need to understand the whole devolution Plan along with building strong linkages with the Provincial Governments to highlight the issues and concerns of the PAPAC Alliance.

Representative from IPAS Nepal shared their learning to address unsafe abortion in Nepal through Public Private Partnership and while developing mid level health care professional i.e mid-wifery the trainings to provide abortion (which is allowed under certain situations) and post abortion care while keeping in mind the geographic’s of the country and lack of availability of female gynaecologist in the rural and hilly areas. IPAS initiative has developed strong referral mechanism for the public and private.

In the last session of the Assembly participants revisited the Alliance objectives and mission while identifying national priorities and strategies for the Alliance to effectively advocate for the Post Abortion care at the national and provincial level.

The forum concluded with the commitment and energy to move forward as a National Alliance and to face the challenges of 18th Amendment and to work with the Provincial Governments with regard to Post Abortion care issues to ensure that Government will remain committed to its International obligations with regard to International commitments i.e. CEDAW and ICPD.

Rutgers WPF looks forward to play an important role at the Federal level for PAPAC advocacy initiatives.

Institutional Strengthening

Rights-driven Institutionalization of Sexual and Reproductive Health in Pakistan-Hamara Kal

‘Review and Planning’ 2011-12 (EU Project)

Two separate meetings of “Review and Planning 2011-12” were held on January 20-21 with HANDS & Aahung; at their respective offices in Karachi. Project staff of each IP and three WPF project staff including; RutgersWPF Country Representative, attended the meeting. Agenda of the meeting comprised of review of the project targets, action plan to achieve 2010 remaining targets, discussion on challenges and review of the budget for 2011-2012. The implementing partner shared progress against targets & its indicators as per LFA, and the strategies and timelines for pending targets from 2010 were also shared. This meeting also aimed to introduce Mr. Saeed-ur-Rehman (Programme Manager: Resource Mobilization & Partnership Building), who will be managing ‘Hamara Kal’ project from February onwards. This meeting helped to rationale the importance of budget re-appropriation with the donor and to address the concerns of IPs and RutgerWPF for its future planning.

As a result of this meeting, a need for documenting implementation challenges were also felt, particularly when field staff faces security challenges and observe target killings. PM IS will take a lead to document such experiences with the support of communications department.

These meetings proved highly fruitful as all issues and concerns of our Implementing Partners were brought on the table in conjunction with any concerns surfaced by RutgersWPF. Consequently, prolific decisions were generated, including; a concerted efforts by our partners in prioritizing to complete the pending activities, better and timely communication, full compliance of EU visibility guidelines, enhanced advocacy and M&E component in the project amongst other things. At our end it was unanimously decided to ensure timely provision of the workbooks, teacher-led referral system for improving youth friendly services and material for reverse education.

The decisions borne out of these meetings, when followed and applied properly will definitely accelerate the project progress and make it more effective.

Training of Trainers Workshop on Sexuality & Sexual Health

RutgersWPF organized a four days ‘Training of Trainers’ with Aahung’s facilitation on sexuality and sexual health from December 4th-7th, 2010 in Lahore. The workshop included 3-4 participants from each organization including Aahung, HANDS, National Trust for Population Welfare (NATPOW), Awaz, Khwendo Kor, Balochistan Rural Support Program (BRSP) and RutgersWPF. The geographical location of the participants was diverse; who came from Quetta, Karachi, Islamabad, Multan and Peshawar.

The workshop aimed to achieve the following objectives amongst participants:

• Improve knowledge on sexual health and rights related issues
• Promote non-judgmental attitudes and values using a rights based approach
• Be able to explore values and beliefs on various sexual rights issues, such as abortion, homosexuality and sex workers and from a rights based perspective
• Be able to apply participatory methodology and adult learning tools and techniques

Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation

To further enhance the effectiveness of up-to-date planning, monitoring and evaluation, the PM&E team at RutgersWPF introduced a new format for regular weekly meeting format. This would ensure enhanced output oriented monitoring and better time management within the day to day tasks at office; thus keeping an overall check on work progress. The new format has been well-received by the whole staff and has already started being used at weekly meetings.

While integrating the monitoring and evaluation within the staff weekly meetings, the PM&E has played a major role in MFS-II planning along with SRHR-E team. The PM&E team worked on drafting implementation and work plans during the National Planning Workshop (NPW) from Jan 24th to Jan 28th. This was done alongside developing a detailed and comprehensive RutgersWPF Annual 2010 report, with each programme and projects progress, to be shared with the Head Quarter.

In addition to this, the PM&E was also busy finalizing the LSBE Evaluation report. This evaluation is being carried out for the project period 2006 – 2010 with a broader aim to assess the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability of LSBE project. The evaluation involves an in depth analysis of the design, implementation, and sustainability of the project and the findings will be used in devising future strategies. The final report and its findings will be shared with the Head Quarter within this week and release on our webpage too. So do stay tuned to our official web page for its release as it would be a very insightful document for anyone who is working on SRHRE in Pakistan or piloting it as a project.

Resource Mobilization & Partnership Development

Even though the Mr. Saeed – ur-Rehman Programme Manager Resource Mobilization & Partnerships, just joined after a yearlong sabbatical leave, spared no time and dived back into work with full-fledged passion and ambition. This month, he was active building a team and orienting them while taking over the management of EU ‘Hamara Kal’ project. Thus, he was part of the ‘Review and Planning’ meeting with HANDS and Aahung in Karachi as well as critically reviewing the progress of the project.

The team concluded that overall the project activities have been performed as per agreed work plan. A few gaps were identified by RutgersWPF Team, which will be met by partners during first quarter of 2011. Additionally, in order to meet growing financial needs in core programmatic activities, RutgersWPF and partners have agreed to rationalize their HR budget and review if savings can be made there. Partners also agreed to nominate one person from their stakeholders (media/ policy makers / religious leaders) for upcoming exposure visit of UNFPA Iran.

RutgersWPF Pakistan Staff News

As each individual at RutgersWPF works diligently for the enhancement of Sexual of Reproductive Health Rights through myriad projects and programmes, one of the most important components remains in the background; human resources & administration. However, without their co-ordination, cooperation and work non other would be possible. The HR & Administration Assistant at RutgersWPF, Ayesha Imtiaz is one such person; and she was promoted this month as Programme Officer for her outstanding performance and commendable work.

Expressions

As of 1 January 2011, Rutgers Nisso Groep and World Population Foundation (WPF) have merged under the new name RutgersWPF. By joining forces we can continue to dedicate ourselves to people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, both in the Netherlands and abroad. For every human being, regardless of gender, (cultural) background or sexual orientation.

For more details visit www.rutgerswpfpak.org