Community Life Competence Process to strengthen CBOs of Female Sex Workers

[YERUVA ANTHONY REDDY]

CARE India, through SAKSHAM Grant Supplement project works with 42 Community Based Organizations (CBOs)/  NGOs implementing HIV Prevention programme with FSWs and MSMs in 7 districts of Andhra Pradesh with goal of enhancing community response to HIV. SAKSHAM has been successful in promoting development of CBOs through a blended approach of Community-to-Community learning based on SALT as a way of working and thinking.

Sixty Community Resource Pool from the local CBOs/NGOs are equipped  with basic foundation skills of SALT, CLCP and Organisational Development. They are divided into 15 teams, each team consisting three members. Each of the team is assigned with 3-4 CBOs to facilitate collectivisation of female sex workers, organising them into a CBO, Strengthening systems around governance, leadership, resource mobilization and enhancing the capacities of CBOs to respond to HIV prevention.

Teams visit the assigned NGOs/CBOs two days a month and facilitate tools such as Dream Building to prioretise the concerns and developing plans to accomplish their dreams. Local CBO leadership team work on executing their plans collectively. Community Resource Persons and the CBOs come together once in three months to learn from each other and assess where they are against the plans developed through self assessments. Except the technical support through community resouce pool, CBOs  do not get any financial support  for strengthening organisational development. CBO leadership team raise local resources and utilise the local strengths to strengthen their CBOs.  

Baseline (2010) and Endline (2012) study conducted by Praxis India, using various participatory methodologies indicated significant improvements in most of the community mobilization parameters especially, creating CBO systems for participative, democratic and accountable governance; improving community participation through functional community committees, enhanced documentation skills and systems for Leadership and decision making.

The average performance of CBOs improved from 31% to 50% in the Leadership parametre. The key indicators studied under the parametre are selection process of CBO leaders, legal compliance as per Societies registration act, selection of community committees and CBO functioning process.

The average score of all CBOs in capacities of the community committees increased from 24% to 44%. The parametre looked into managerial, community mobilization and crisis management skills of leadership team.

The average score under the Parameter of the Inclusion of KPs in Committees and Core project team increased from 20% to 41%. The key indicators looked into are; community participation in consultative meeting, strategic decision making; Community ownership in community led event and Leadership's accountability towards members.

Community Resource Pool who made this possible have interesting sories of local response to HIV. India Competence Team initiated a skype meeting to provide platform for the communities practising SALT to learn from each other. The first skype meeting is expected to be scheduled on 18th February 2013. The meeting will be attended by SIAAP and SAKSHAM community members. Thanks to Mr.Prabhakar from SIAAP for volunteering to facilitate the first meeting.

And  I am looking forward for it.

 

 

 

[YERUVA ANTHONY REDDY]

Thank you Phil. Can you share your email ID or should i send it replying to the [e-mail].

 

[Phil]

Anthony, 

I am sorry to say that I must have missed your post when it came out. Would I be able to see the report produced by Praxis to show the improvement in the CBOs? It looks very interesting. 

Phil