The Consortium for the Advancement of Rights for Key Affected Populations (CARKAP) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and development partners, through the Health Systems Strengthening (HSS), with funds from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, has concluded its first advocacy workshop for community systems strengthening leadership.
The three-day workshop was held at the Vanilla Complex on Aberdeen Road with the theme, “Leave no one behind”. About 30 participants from organisations around the country working with key affected populations took part in the training.
Mayowa Joel, Consultant and Facilitator, said the objectives of the workshop was to enable participants to, “Gain a deeper understanding and experience on evidence-based advocacy; Understand how advocacy can be integrated into programme work; Learn how to develop advocacy strategy; Develop draft advocacy plan for the organization; Share experience with other advocates; Strengthen and working towards building a community of advocates”.
Topics discussed during the learning sessions included: Experience sharing on advocacy, Understanding the difference between advocacy and other strategies. What is advocacy? Benefits of advocacy; Select an issue or problem you want to address; Situation analysis of key affected population in Sierra Leone and implications for evidence based advocacy; Identifying your targets, resources allies, and oppositions; Creating an action plan.
Nellie Williams is the Director of Alliance for Women Development (AWOD-SL), an institution dealing with teenage sex workers and teenage pregnancy. She said, “Many a times we go on advocacy but we do not use the actual advocacy tools. So with this training, we have learned a lot: how to differentiate these tools and how to use them”. She said the training will improve AWOD’s technical staff and also it’s going to help them know some of these tools and when to apply them. She thanked the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, Global Funding and CARKAP for organising this workshop. “It has really improved our skills; improve our compatibility even within the way we can also interact with the community people”.
Aiah Umar Konoboy, Livelihood Officer NETHIPS, said the workshop was strategic being that it was geared towards strengthening institutions on advocacy. It will empower all participants including him to be able to look at problems adequately. “Gaining knowledge is one aspect of the process, putting that knowledge into practice is also another aspect on its own and most importantly sharing that knowledge with other people is in fact the greater aspect. So from here on I will be well capacitated to be able to disseminate this information to my colleague staffs”, he said.
The CAR-KAP is a consortium established by organizations strongly affected by the three diseases (AIDS, TB and Malaria), they are comprised of civil society organizations, networks and associations of PLHIVs, men with high risk sexual behaviours, women’s organizations, youth, children’s movements among others gearing towards advancing advocacy campaigns on rights to access services for key affected populations and their communities within national health programmes.
ES/25/11/17
By Edna Smalle
Monday November 27, 2017.