Editorial

The beginning of a new year always brings hope and optimism, a burst of anticipation and rejuvenated spirits; regardless of the struggles or hurdles that surfaced during the previous year. That is one of the best things about new years; the possibility of a fresh start, renewed determination and a bright outlook on all aspects of life.

Here at the World Population Foundation, this notion especially stands true as we look towards new horizons; by merging with Rutgers Nisso Groep to form a brand new entity by the name of RutgersWPF. Together we are uniquely positioned to promote sexual and reproductive health rights of the people regardless of their background, cultures or sexual orientation, better than ever before.

To kick off a great new year to a great start, the RutgersWPF team, Pakistan spent the first few days of January at a training/workshop on ‘Orientation on Strategic & Operational Planning to enhancing organizational effectiveness’ at Bhurban to kick off the process for developing Strategic and Operational Planning 2011-16. The workshop was invigorating, stimulating and thought-provoking and gave the staff an orientation on strategic and operational planning. Other highlights of the year end include; closing of MFS I- Life Skills Based Education project and policy dialogue on SRHR services in emergencies & crisis situations in addition to concluding Safe Motherhood Campaign in Sindh province. To find out more, read on!

Strategic & Operational Planning Orientation workshop

One of the foremost activities designed under the Organizational Effectiveness project, aimed at capacity building of the RutgersWPF staff members, was to enhance team work, leadership and orient the staff on strategic and operational planning. In this regard a 3 days workshop was organized by RIZ consultants, from the 2nd to 4th January at Bhurban. The whole staff of RutgersWPF attended this workshop and learnt quite a lot. The workshop aimed to enhance leadership skills and team building spirit while orienting the staff on strategic and operational planning. It was a good mix and balance of lectures, insightful handouts, simulation exercises, brainstorming and self-realization calisthenics. Key findings from the assessment of the individual staff interviews that had been conducted as well as the focus group discussions were shared with entire RutgersWPF staff in the form of a report. The workshop concluded on a very energetic and high-spirited mood, with the action plan for the next two months, the formulation of a task force for the strategic & operational planning and clarity about the work that needs to be done ahead.

RutgersWPF Staff Retreat

After a great end to the 3 days training on Organizational Effectiveness at Pearl Continental, Bhurban, the RutgersWPF staff retreat initiated during the late half of 4th January 2011. The retreat began with an invigorating team/staff activity of a cricket match followed by another exhilarating physical game called ‘Kho’. After the winning teams had gathered their accolades, the entire staff went for a walk around the resort trail.

Once fresh and warmed up, the staff got together to discuss the action plan for the Stratgic and Operational planning and mutually decide on who to gather in the task force. After a productive meeting the night ended with a great bonfire on a chilly night, a poetry session by the aesthetically inclined staff members and a delicious dinner. The following day was also filled with fun and activities, like snooker, table tennis, ‘taboo’ matches and a stop over at a scenic spot for lunch. It truly was a retreat as everyone went home relaxed, enjoyed and bonded beyond work with colleagues, which built more trust and confidence than before.

LSBE Formal School System (MFS I)

The end of year 2010 is marked rather significantly as it brings to conclusion the first cycle of Ministry of Foreign Affair Subsidy (2006-2010) for the Life Skills Based Education Programme in Pakistan. Looking back, it has been a great journey; training many enthusiastic teachers & determined headmasters, teaching children who were highly vulnerable and observing a positive change in their attitudes. Reviewing the last month implementing partners completed Whole of School Activities (WoS), Professional Development Forum (PDF) and Programme Review Forum (PRF). The activities focused on raising awareness in the school community on young people’s right to information and education about Sexual and Reproductive Health issues.

Meanwhile, all the stakeholders (Education Department Officials, Principals, Master Trainers, Teachers and LSBE graduates) in the districts were duly recognized for their interest and unwavering support during the course of the last 5 years. WPF with the support of its implementing partners in Vehari , Peshawar and Faisalabad will be holding convocation ceremonies in respective districts in January 2011. The main objective of these convocations is to formally conclude the LSBE programme in the districts and show gratitude to various stakeholders of the programme for their contributions and dedication for its successful completion. Also WPF believes and hopes that the convocation environment will allow stakeholders to interact with the peer groups outside their usual setting, thus building a collective sense of belonging to their community.

Resolution on “Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS & Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS” passed!

In another happening and positive development; the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution on HIV/AIDS through consensus for 2011. The resolution calls for a high-level meeting to be held from 8-10th June 2011 which will take a comprehensive review of the progress achieved in realizing the Declaration of Commitment and the Political Declaration, including successes, best practices, lessons learned, obstacles and gaps, challenges and opportunities, and recommendations to guide and monitor the HIV/AIDS response beyond 2010, including concrete strategies for action as well promote the continued commitment and engagement of leaders in a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS.

The resolution is a reaffirmation of the General-Assembly’s commitment to the Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, while a plan to review the progress through a high-level meeting by inviting all concerned stakeholders and partners that are involved. This high-level moot would not only be a checking point for resolution, it will also be a set date/deadline for accelerated work towards the goal for HIV/AIDS reduction. For a detailed overview of the resolution document please visit this Link.

Roundtable on Safe Motherhood

A round table on Safe Motherhood was organized by RutgersWPF, Pakistan in collaboration with HANDS in Karachi on the 21st Dec 2010. This was a provincial seminar, as part of the ‘Rang-e-Kainat Campaign’ that has been successfully being carried forth by the World Population Foundation, under which the resolution on “Preventable Maternal Mortality and Morbidity” was recognized in the Balochistan Assembly.

This round table was a meeting between all the important stakeholders, including media representatives, provincial representatives, major political parties and the members from the civil society and NGOs. A positive and productive outcome of the meeting was the consensus on presenting the resolution on ‘Preventable Maternal Mortality’ in the Parliament! This is the first milestone towards securing and making the dream of Safe Motherhood throughout the nation come true.

Organizational Effectiveness (Packard Foundation)

RutgersWPF, Pakistan was supported by the Packard Foundation for enhancing Organizational Effectiveness of WPF. This project is aiming at developing an understanding of strategic and operational planning among RutgersWPF Team. Additionally, it was also to involve them in improving the organizational structure to design a system of integrated strategic and operational planning. These trainings will support the development of a strategic and operational plan whereby refining leadership skills in RutgersWPF staff.

RIZ Consulting was selected to help with the annual Strategic and Operational Plan for RWPF and build capacity of staff to continue this process for upcoming years. This support is intended to build coherence between the work of different programmes staff, effectiveness of RWPF, and prevent duplication of efforts thereby improving time and resource management. To chalk out and assess the basic structure, attitude and perceptions about the organization a combination of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were held with RWPF senior and middle management staff on the basis of the S&OP assessment tool. Respondents were assured of confidentiality, introduced to the structure of the interview and/or focus group discussion, allowing for an opportunity to express their views openly. Similarly, external stakeholders/partners/donors/support organizations were invited to two stakeholder workshop to meet the following objectives: Providing and overview on RWPF’s pogroms and SP process and generating strategic recommendations to inform WPF’s SP process.

Meeting with UNIFEM on the Safe District Approach

A meeting was held at the RutgersWPF office on the 30th Dec 2010 where two members from UNIFEM and three members including the Country Representative, Mr. Qadeer Baig from WPF attended the meeting. UNIFEM representatives shared a document of Safe District Approach and stated that UNIFEM has made headway on the report and once it is finalized the indicators and the work plan will be developed. For commencement of Safe District Approach, coordination and network with other similar organizations and with local government was acknowledged as a fundamental component of the Approach. It was agreed that in next step WPF’s partner organizations will collect the data of organizations and institutions in their respective districts, so as to formulate a coherent strategy and network on developing a comprehensive SDA model.

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

National Project Steering Committee

The fourth bi-annual National Project Steering Committee meeting was held at World Population Foundation office on 23rd Dec 2010. This committee was primarily formed to monitor the progress of the project at different stages through biannual reviews and to share the experience amongst IPs & members of the steering committee on the situation in the three targeted districts.

Ten NPSC members attended the meeting that was held here in December, for review of the project progress and achievements 2009-2010, sharing of the ‘youth empowerment strategy’, ‘capacity building of the media strategy’ and the work plan for 2011. A thorough dialogue was held amongst the participants on the agenda points and their recommendations were taken note of. These action points were then proposed by the committee in view of the meeting:

• WPF will ensure implementing partners empowerment at district level through visibility and communication component of the project.
• NPSC recommended to constitute provincial level (Sindh and Punjab); in post 18th amendment scenario. The partners will take lead to arrange Project Steering Committee meetings at provincial level to involve provincial government to improve SRHR of youth.
• A sub-committee comprised of media, Implementing Partner and Youth representative was constituted to review and further finalize the “Capacity Building of Media Strategy”.
• ‘Youth Empowerment Strategy’ was appreciated and it was advised to share this with project staff of implementing partners for their feedback for finalization.
• 2011 plan was endorsed. WPF will finalize with input from partners.

Gender-Based Violence- Reproductive Health

Progress continues in the GBV-RH project, which is overlooked by the IS team, as MoUs with six partner organizations have been signed for small grants. Under this project, the IS team in on its way to launch a research study on domestic violence with the reproductive health perspective which will extract data from the six PGRN districts. This will draw light from domestic violence cases but from a new angle (of reproductive health). Initial study designs and questionnaire have already been shared with the technical advisor at HQ and the team is awaiting comments and feedback so as to initiate this study soon.

The Policy Dialogue on Sexual & Reproductive Health Rights services in Emergencies

The Policy Advocacy team of RutgersWPF recently organized the advocacy dialogues held on SRHR services in emergencies, in the GBV project: Jaccobabad, Kashmore, Jaffarabad, Nasirabad, Muzzafargarh and DG Khan areas. This is a great and much needed initiative, as the SRHR rights of people, especially vulnerable groups get neglected during crisis situations, thus making them more susceptible and defenseless than normal.

The event was organized by our GBV partners and the 28 young fellows who had been selected from our project areas. A boy and a girl were selected from each district for the dialogues. It was pleasantly surprising to note the enthusiastic and vigorous participation of the girls, who had come forth from really remote areas, and took active part in cluster meetings of their respective districts. They were taking keen interest in all discussions and were adamant on the formation of minimum guidelines for SRHR to be set and followed in a humanitarian crisis. Participants included key members like media personnel, government representatives, UNOCHA, local and international NGOs; all were invited to share their views on SRHR and the need to develop guidelines. Advocacy team from RutgersWPF provided technical input to the local partners and also participated in the policy dialogue to present organization’s standpoint on SRHR.

These policy dialogues have borne fruit, in that they have elevated the confidence level of the girls who actively took part in these discussions, and also by bringing the issue to the table and forefront, so that they are paid heed to during emergency situations. In fact, at one district the GBV child/protection cluster even resolved to making SRHR issues part of the existent working group.

Empowering Girls – Transforming Communities

Conceptualization of Summer Adolescent Empowerment Toolkit

In the empowering girls-transforming communities project, funded by Packard Foundation, one key objective was to equip adolescent girls with the various tools to sensitize the community during the summer of 2011. The idea is to equip these girls with an Adolescent Girls Empowerment Tool kit, which will help them educate, inform and sensitize their peers, parents and the general community.

At the moment, RutgersWPF is in the process of developing the concept of the toolkit which is based on the “diffusion of innovation” theory; that certain individuals (opinion leaders) from a given population act as agents of behavioral change by disseminating information and influencing group norms in their community (Rogers, 1983). In this case these opinion leaders will be young adolescent girls which have already gone through Life Skills & SRHR Education in schools, will act as catalysts in the community to bring about positive change in the lives of adolescent girls from within their community.

WPF is deliberating on the types of tools for peer education and reverse education. The tools developed will be informative, interactive and interesting and will keep in view the context of the project districts.

Life Skills Education Curriculum Progress in the districts

After the training of Master Trainers and Teachers, the implementation of the LSE curriculum has been initiated with grade 8 girls in 55 Government Girls High Schools in the districts of Sanghar and Gujranwala. Prior to the curriculum distribution, the girls completed the pre-test questionnaire developed by RutgersWPF, focusing on the Knowledge, Attitude and Skills of themes covered in the curriculum. This questionnaire will help access the changes in the parameters after the same questionnaire is administered at the completion of the curriculum. Guidelines for administration were also developed and shared with implementing partners to ensure quality data gathering and avoiding any discrepancies in the pre & post data collection.

As of now, pre-test questionnaires have been completed by students to assess their knowledge, skills and behaviors before introducing the curriculum, and they have been equipped with 2 sessions. The curriculum sessions will resume in schools, in the new in the New Year, after school winter break.

Year end usually means an excessive amount of work for the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation team; which was busy planning review meetings and the work for the next year. This is a very important and crucial process; without assessing previous work, best practices, lessons learnt, challenges faces or faulty assumptions made, one cannot progress ahead effectively. Thus, review and assessment is not only crucial but essential for further progress, with more efficiency and reduced probability of making mistakes or replicating tasks. The Semi-annual review and planning meeting was a result of a week long process of reviewing each programme and department’s progress against their work plans on the Work Break Structure. The meeting was fruitful and quite productive, and focused on the analytical overview of the achievements, challenges, and lessons learnt during the past 6 months. Programmes/departments also shared their plans for the new quarter which will be consolidated by PM&E into next year’s work plan.

In another positive development here at RutgersWPF, one of our old staff member; Saeed-ur-Rehman, who was on a sabbatical leave, came back! Saeed had gone to Australia to acquire his Masters degree in Sustainable Development, and is now back at RutgersWPF office as Programme Manager Partnership & Resource Mobilization.

Further celebratory news includes our staff member Mr. Kifayat being blessed with a healthy baby boy! Many congratulations to him and his wife on this joyous new family addition.

Just recently a book written by Dr Mobin Akhtar, titled ‘Sex Education for Muslims’ became the cause of great controversy and unsheathed fury here in Pakistan. Dr Akhtar, is one of the few people who have dared to raise his concern over the taboo that cloaks topics on sexuality and sexuality education, and has actually done something about it.

According to Dr Mubin Akhtar, his book “Sex Education for Muslims” sheds light about sex that is in line with Islamic instruction. It is well-referenced and has a comprehensive literature review; with references from the Quran and Hadith supporting his thesis. Dr Akhtar is of the opinion that the lack of discussion on this topic has created many adverse affects in our society and has left deep-seated repercussions on the youth of our nation. Without proper knowledge, guidance and information the chances of get involved in risky behavior rises up much more than one can fathom. Dr Akhtar relays that his research (being carried since 1979) clearly shows that the lack of information confuses adolescents; when boys/girls reach puberty they see/feel the changes in their body yet no one tells them that it is normal. When they start masturbating, it is laden with guilt, shame and self-disgust as they are told it is a forbidden act. These adolescents are thus, so confused and perplexed by their mental/psychological state that they usually fall in severe depression, at times even commit suicide.

It is sad to know that these children are living day in and day out in a state of mental trauma; about something that they have a right to know about. It is a subject that the Holy Quran has shed light on categorically and a topic that has been brought up by our prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as well. Dr Akhtar faced many hurdles while carrying out his research and had to face the wrath of many due to the stance he took. Not a single publisher wants to publish his book nor does any news paper network want to print the advertisement for his book. Our objective and liberal media had even refused to support his cause and has turned its face away from it.

Not only should this endeavor taken by Dr Akhtar be eulogized, rather we should support him in his cause by trying to break the taboo and publish more material akin to “Sex Education for Muslims” in the Pakistani context. Let us resolve to educate, inform and instruct our children about their basic health and human rights, so that they can protect themselves from the evils that take form without this knowledge.

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

For more information please logon to: www.wpfpak.org

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