Editorial

Hello everyone!

Another very busy month here at Rutgers WPF has gone by; with myriad activities going on in all the programmes. This includes the extensive Organizational Effectiveness workshop held from the 26th-28th February, very well received school convocation ceremony held at Faisalabad for the closing of MSF I LSBE project, MDG 5b Alliance at Karachi, attendance to the D4L International Meeting in Amsterdam and very informative visit for Safe District project by our friends across the border and many more.

To find out about the month long activities here at Rutgers WPF, please read on!

RutgersWPF Pakistan News

Organizational Effectiveness (Packard Foundation)

In-House Capacity Building Sessions

As known to all of you through our previous newsletters, Rutgers WPF, Pakistan had initiated a process for reviewing its country strategy 2007-12 to draft next 5 years Strategic & Operational Planning (2011-2016) with the financial support of Packard Foundation. With regards to this a set of workshops have been designed by the Rutgers WPF team. As promised in the second phase of our workshop, capacity building sessions from within the Rutgers WPF staff were conducted for all internal staff members. A very informative and hands-on session was given by the Knowlegde Management Programme Manager Kashif Muneer and Programme Officer Aasia Niazi on “WPF Web-based Monitoring & Evaluation System as well as on ‘How to Use the Printer Smartly’”. Additionally, a succinct and crisp lecture was given on advocacy by the Policy Advocacy Programme Manager and on ‘Finance 101’ by the Finance Manager.

Following the basic OE plan for S&OP; a two-hour panel discussion was held to better understand the local context of SRHR by Rutgers WPF on 21st February 2011 with Dr. Inam, Dr. Adnan Khan and Imtiaz Alvi as the guest speakers. This session was moderated by Mr. Imran and the following key topics were discussed:

• Perspective of international aid giving agencies on SRHR issues,
• Policies and initiatives of government and international NGOs related to SRH,
• The affects of devolution on service delivery mechanism of RH/FP and lessons learnt

Organizational Effectiveness Workshop

The third successful phase of the organizational effectiveness workshop was held from the 26th-28th February 2011 at Marriott Islamabad for Rutgers WPF by RIZ Consultants. The main objective of the workshop was to finalize the S&OP draft by drafting the mission, vision & goals of the organization and carrying out a detailed SWOT analysis of the organization. The three day workshop proved to be highly enriching and stimulating for all the staff members as it gave room for new innovative ideas to be put at the table and looking at current projects/programmes and structures through a critical lens to come up with the most effective planning framework. It was decided during this workshop that the first draft for the operational planning document will be completed by the end of April 2011 and subsequently shared with the HQ. The fourth phase of the OE process comprises of quarterly meetings and discussions where as the fifth phase will include dissemination & sharing of the plan with our stakeholders. The OE process is a very rigorous exercise on our own works assessments, re-evaluation and vital decisions of how to move forth.

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Education

Convocation Ceremonies

The MSF I cycle ended with convocation ceremonies in three of our target districts where both Levels 1 & 2 of the curriculum were completed. Previously successful convocation ceremony events had been carried out in Vehari (20th January 2011) and Peshawar (26th January 2011) as iterated in our previous letter. This month the last of the planned convocation ceremony was held in Faisalabad which had initially gotten delayed due to examinations. The Country Representative, Pakistan Qadeer Baig along with Programme Coordinator Aamer Khan attended the convocation on behalf of Rutgers WPF. It was a platform where various stakeholders involved in the programme were given token prizes like certificates and shields to show appreciation for their cooperation, hard work and successful completion of the programme. It was a well organized event and was appreciated by all the participants.

Empowering Girls – Transforming Communities

School Visits in Sanghar

Rutgers WPF team (CR and PC) visited 2 project schools in Sanghar to assess the level of acceptance of the Life Skills curriculum by teachers and adolescent girls. Varied feedback was received on the content of the curriculum and its implementation in schools. The feedback was well received by the Rutgers WPF and will be kept in mind while revising the curriculum and consequently conducting trainings. This field visit helped RutgersWPF realize the need to take all stakeholders on board before the curriculum content is revised for the new school session.

Policy Dialogue with Local Education & Health Departments (EGTC)

To facilitate the process of Policy Dialogue with Local Education and Health Department, a District Project Steering Committee has been constituted at both the project areas: Sanghar & Gujranwala. The District Project Steering Committee will ensure quality and effectiveness of all activities/initiatives of the project, Empowering Girls- Transforming Communities through involving major stakeholders at every step of the project in addition to valuing their feedback and support. The committee will hold meetings on quarterly basis throughout the year and constitutes of representatives of all important stakeholders, which include, adolescent girl leaders, teachers, Master Trainers, media representatives, and District Government Officials.

The first Meeting of the Steering Committee was held in Shahdadpur on 24th February 2011 with the active support of project implementing partner, SAFWCO. The participants of the first meeting were representative from SAFWCO, Rutgers WPF, Adolescent girls, Parent, Master Trainer, Teacher, DO Education & Lawyer. The main agenda points on the meeting were to brief the stakeholders on the progress of the project since its inception in 2009 and to draft the work plan for 2011. The committee was also briefed on new initiatives; Whole of School Activities and Summer Adolescent Girls Empowerment toolkit. It was encouraging to see all members participating, especially adolescent girls, providing input to make project initiatives more effective. The DO Education Sanghar, Mr. Abdul Ghaffar Rajput was very supportive of the project & its initiatives and promised the departments full support. The next meeting of the Steering Committee will be held in June.

Institutional Strengthening

Safe District Approach: Meetings with Indian Consultants from Jagori

For the UNIFEM-Rutgers WPF ‘Safe District Approach’ project two very productive meetings were held with Indian consultants associated with Jagori, here at the Rutgers WPF, Pakistan field office. Both consultants were very capable, informed and had carried out similar projects in Delhi on safe districts, thus came to brief us of their experiences. Kalpana Vishwanath has been leading the Safe Delhi for Women and Girls since 2004. This initiative has used an encompassing approach whereby students, women, girls, youths in the slums, residents associations, middle class working women etc all have been involved in making Delhi a better/safer place for women. She was accompanied by Sneeta Kar Dhar; who has substantive knowledge in advancing and institutionalizing gender equality and women’s rights and developing strategic plans on ending violence against women. Thus, they made a very knowledgeable and experienced team for consultation and cleared up many of our queries while advising us on the way the research/project should be taken forth.

The meeting was all inclusive, as all our GBV district partners were present for the meetings and directed a lot of questions to the consultants. After a detailed orientation from the consultants on their safe city project and the methodology used by them, the floor was opened for questions and comments. The consultants also shared with us a very enlightening research study report that had been conducted by the; “Understanding Women’s Safety: Towards a Gender Inclusive City 2009-10” which was a very good read and cleared a lot of inquiries on the project execution.

Policy Advocacy

MDG 5b Alliance Meeting

A meeting for joint advocacy initiatives was held on the 1st of February 2o11 in Karachi by the MDG 5b Alliance here in Pakistan. Rutgers WPF took full part throughout its running, along with FPAP and ShirkatGah.

The meeting commenced with a brief update on the devolution of MOPW and a research study young-age marriage study along with the advocacy initiatives of FPAP. A detailed and discerning discussion followed on the devolution plan at the provincial level and it was concluded that the domain of family planning and contraception still remains largely vague in this respect. It was also conferred that the Alliance needs to pay thorough attention to working with the Federation and Provinces to highlight the major challenges faced by the social/development sector at the provincial level.

CPD 2011

The upcoming CPD conference 2011 was also discussed as the two Alliance members (Rutgers WPF and ShirkatGah) will be participating in this conference. A consensus was reached for the need to lobby with the Government to send a strong delegation to the conference as Pakistan will be the co-chair for the CPD conference and thus will play an extremely important role for the adoption of the Programme of Action of ICPD (1994). With regards to this, Rutgers WPF has been regularly updating the Alliance on its significance and is hopeful to mobilize a strong Government Delegation for the CPD Conference 2011 along with the Alliance Members.

Partnerships & Sustainability

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

Health Care Providers Training

A workshop to address the supply mechanism of SRHR services and to encourage HCPs to be open and friendly to young people in addressing their SRHR issues was conducted in Multan and Mitiari by Rutgers WPF through its implementing partner Aahung on the 17th & 18th of February 2011.

To reform, deconstruct and challenge the general attitude amongst HCPs who are negligent or uninformed in attending to young people’s SRHR issues, this workshop provided the to be the right way to go. In addition to helping HCPs realize the way they need to deal with the youth, it also polished their skills on how to address adolescent sexual and reproductive health issues i.e. effective communication and management of STIs, RTIs and family planning methods. This workshop also focused on ensuring that the youth-friendly health services are related with the IPPF rights framework. A participatory approach was adopted to ensure optimal learning retention by utilizing a variety of methods including brainstorming exercises, group work, presentations and role-plays. This was complemented by relevant documentaries that were played for the HCPs for further sensitization.

Aloha Multan!

A review and planning visit to Multan by Programme Manager Resource Mobilization & Partnership Building Saeed-ur-Rehman also took place on the 3rd of February 2011 to assess & evaluate the project activities completed by our IP AwazCDs. In addition to the work appraisal our team PRM team also identified clearly the responsibilities in the field, assessed the current budgetary needs and the upcoming work plan strategy for 2011-2012. This was a two-pronged activity visit, whereby one meeting was held with the management and execution team at the AwazCDs office and another was a field visit to the Government Secondary High School in Multan. Both proved highly informative and useful as the feedback from teachers, students and the administration at the school on LSBE curriculum was significantly encouraging and insightful and the IP analysis/feedback helped shed light on any difficulties faced in the field.

Memorandum of Understanding 2011 & Annual Report Submission

The PRM team was especially busy last month drafting MoUs for the IPs with advent of 2011 and thus, renewal of agreements for smooth execution of the project ‘Hamara Kal’ in the three project districts: Karachi, Multan & Mitiari. This was in conjunction with submission of the annual report for the ‘Hamara Kal’ project, which is a donor stipulation, and encompasses a brief account of all the activities that were carried out in the last six month (July-Dec 2011). A thorough snap of all the achievements, challenges and lessons learnt during the said phase were reported to the European Commission in Pakistan.

Knowledge Management

The Knowledge Management team, responsible for assisting each programme with the designing, dissemination, drafting and on ground activities conducted a very useful in-house learning session on ‘How to use the Printer Smartly & The Basics of Using the Web-based M&E System’ for internal Rutgers WPF capacity building. The session was well-attended and everyone enthusiastically participated in the post-session discussion. A conclusion was reached whereby it was decided that more of such learning sessions should be held by internal staff as it makes work more efficient and timely.

Keeping in view the integral role of communications in each initiative at organizational level, the Communications & Research Officer has been working on the Organizational Communication Strategy along with a research study drafting for the gender-based domestic violence research. An effective communication strategy will integrate coherently all programmes and also ensure smart communication mediums utilized in all initiatives. In addition to that, keeping in view much significance of the electronic & print media in Pakistan since the past decade and its potential to be used as a partner (and not just a tool); Rutgers WPF has proposed an initiative: “Capacity Building of the Media in SRHR” under the EU funded project ‘Hamara Kal’. Our partners in this initiative are an Islamabad based organization; Intermedia, well-known for its meticulous media related trainings.

Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation

As all decisions here at the Rutgers WPF are taken in a consultative and inclusive manner, it was deemed necessary that a discussion on whether to take up Quetta as a potential project location or not was held at the office. In a short yet highly invigorating session on an in-house debate conducted by the PM&E team on the highly divisive topic “to Quetta or not to Quetta”; where the whole staff discussed the pros and cons of taking Quetta as a working district. This rapid risk analysis was carried out for working in Quetta and was based on a structured approach to thinking through obvious threats related to the unrest in Quetta, followed by an evaluation of their probability and the extent to which they can impact the smooth implementation of the programme activities. The first draft of the exercise was shared with CR and SRHR-E based on which Rutgers WPF decided to develop a comprehensive mitigation plan for avoiding/minimizing the possible challenges of working in a highly volatile environment.

Simultaneously, the team compiled, composed and shared the Rutgers WPF annual report with the HQ; which gave a detailed and through account of all the achievements, gaps, best practices, lessons and challenges that were faced by the organization at different levels.

International Conference & Exposure

Programme Manager SRHR-E, Cyma Ashraf flew to Amsterdam for the International Dance4Life Meeting from the 14th of February 2011 to 18th February 2011. Sharing her reflections on the meeting outcomes and the overall productivity, she relays that it was highly enlightening, invigorating and motivating.

The meeting kicked-off with the Asia regional meeting; where each separately presented the HIV/SRHR situation (for youth) in their respective countries. The discussion progressed on to a productive sharing of ideas, successes, challenges and best solutions in each respective case. This proved to be a very useful discussion where it was unanimously agreed that keeping initiatives interactive and skillful works (youth to be given tasks, assignments, brainteasers), that energetic volunteers are an important component of a successful campaign and that linking with other organizations working on HIV/SRHR proves to be fruitful on every count. Highly effective is to contextually link all the activities with the ongoing cultural events or community level functions. Some challenges that surfaced were the sustainability of the initiative and the ways in which schools were to be involved completely.

The three day international meeting progressed with effective topic discussions, where “working as a region” was decidedly the main focus; under which four sub-themes were identified for discussion. These included: strategies for effective youth involvement, sharing resources and implementation, advocacy and campaigning and lastly linking the regional agents4change.

A refreshing interaction on communication strategies using the mobile technology as an advocacy tool was also stimulated, where myriad options on spreading SRGH/HIV awareness via mobile technology were explored. This was particularly relevant to our context and set forth idea-sharing of such initiatives in Pakistan.

Overall, the D4L 2011 International Meeting proved to be a highly refreshing, enriching and enlightening experience, and its discussion’s ripple effects will be in form of action oriented approach here at our office for new initiatives.

Staff News

This month we had to bid farewell to our Finance Programme Manager Ayesha Rasool, as she decided to tie the knot and resign from work. The whole staff organized a festive ‘dholki’ at one of the office members house, where much celebration was carried out with singing, dancing and the traditional ‘mehndi rasams’.

To replace her position, a new staff member was hired; Mr. M. Asif Chisti. He has done MBA Finance and is currently doing his MS in Finance. Asif has a prior experience of around 5+ years in this field. We wish him a warm welcome and a great addition to Rutgers WPF family.

Expressions

Pakistan is a country with persistently high population growth and officially a population of 173.3 million in 2010 of which 40 percent are below the poverty line. Read more>>

As of 1 January 2011, Rutgers Nisso Groep and World Population Foundation (WPF) have merged under the new name Rutgers WPF. 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