Community Action Plans (CAPs) Review & Planning Workshop
Under “Hamro Sahakarya” project in project three districts 20 Women’s Self Help Groups (SHGs) are collectively raising their voices against harmful & discriminatory norms and also addressing community problems. For this each SHG have developed their own community action plans and are facilitating to raise sensitized community people, seeking commitments and ownership of the local governments, enhancing access of marginalized community in the community resources/services and advocating for the effective implementation of policies/guidelines that promotes gender equality and social inclusion.
The two days’ workshop was conducted in Birendranagar of Surkhet and Dhangadi of Kailali districts. The workshop aims to review on going implementation of CAPs, its achievements, learnings and key challenges. Further the workshop also enhanced knowledge and skills of SHG members and community volunteers to plan strategically and facilitate CAP in effective way mobilizing other community groups and organization. The workshop provided a platform for discussion, learning, and development of new implementation strategy, approaches and tools for the upcoming plans.
The two days CAP of the workshop was facilitated by the project core team members. That included nine different sessions like; review CAPs implementation in the SHGs, orientation on CAP importance its contribution and linkages towards project overall goals, identification and prioritization of issues, stakeholders mapping, implementation strategy for CAP, advocacy tools, orientation on seven steps planning process and developing new CAP proposal for the submission on upcoming ward level planning process meeting called tole/ward vela. The sessions were facilitated in the participatory approaches focusing on group work, reflection exercises and case sharing with presentations on key topics.
The given key learnings and reflections from the participants highlights their takeaway from the training and also suggest strategic window for the future implementations.
- Community Action Plans should address the root causes of the problems to end harmful norms and practices.
- A strong coordination and collaborations is needed with the local government and concerned stakeholders for the effective implementation, ownership and monitoring of CAP and its initiatives/follow up.
- Stakeholders mapping helps to identify whom to engage in the CAP and what kind of support or expertise they bring us. The identification of risk/threat group is also important to mitigate future risk during implementation of CAPs in sensitive issues like case of sexual gender based violence, child marriage and Chhupadi.
- Commitment and engagement of the right holders and duty bearers is very important for the CAP implementation and follow up.
- Follow up of the CAP is also very important to understand the key achievement and upcoming support/initiatives.
“After the sessions of problem analysis, I realized we were working in the effects of problems only, working in effects can’t addressed the problems effectively. For this we have to analyze the problems deeply, identify its root causes and also understand different aspects of the problems, collect enough evidences. Than only we can successfully implement the CAPs and address the problems.” _ Manisha Rosayer, Laligurans SHGs, Shikhar Municipality, Doti
“Stakeholders identification and mapping was unique exercise for me, I realized the importance of stakeholders roles and their engagements for the successful implementation of community action plans. We can trap different resources and support from different stakeholders in the community.” _ Maya Chaudhary, Janautthan SHGs, Kailari RM, Kailali
“The group activities were effective in understanding CAP strategies. Extending the duration of interactive sessions provided valuable skills and tools for in-depth discussions and idea exchange. In the past, we overlooked many aspects due to our own perspectives, but now we will implement CAP in Sarlahi more proactively & efficiently”_ Sanjay Mandal, PC-Nepal Dalit Sewa Samaj- Sarlahi
“It’s good to see the achievements and enhanced leadership skills of SHGs through presentation of implemented CAPs. Mobilization of local government and service provider in the implementation of CAP is very important. JuRI/FEDO should also ensure engagement of SHGs in upcoming local government planning process with SHGs agendas and proposal.”_ Pratibha Chaudhary, UN Women Province Coordinator, Sudurpachhim
All together there were 47 participants (includes Dalits: 38, Janjati:6, BCT:2 & Madhesi:1) of which 44 were women and 3 were men.