Competency Assessment on Gender Violence (Guyana)

[Abbas Mancey]

Hi friends,

Like most places the incidence of gender violence in Guyana is quite high.

As part of our response we've adapted the Community & Self Competence
Assessment tool toward gender-based violence. See attached. Would love
to hear comments and how other may have tried - both challenges and
successes.

best,
Abbas Mancey

Revised Competency Assessment Framework [Gender Based Violence].doc

[Dr. E. Mohamed Rafique]

Many thanks to Abbas Mancey. Just to inform that we are proposing the GBV adapted framework in a concept note. I will keep everyone posted on the developments.

How relieved I was to see that I did not have to reinvent the wheel!

Thanks to Rituu too, who guided me here.

God Bless.

[Dr Mitu Khurana]

Dear Abhas,sorry could not contact earlier, was not well, andhence did not sit on computer for long time. I am going through all that u did, but right now we are not a N.G.O or a team , I am thinking of making one. Right now we are doing everything on an individual basis. Would love to hear more about your expirience and how you all managed it.
Love
Mitu

[Abbas Mancey]

Hey Rebeka,

Thanks for reaching out, i've heard that Indonesia tried something similar and was hoping to hear about your experience, and what were some of the learnings.

The SA framework is not a standard, it's an attempt to try to take a number of persons (particularly interested in reducing GBV and working with men & boys) through a learning and planning exercise to better respond to reducing GBV nationally - this is the theory at least. I realise I'm at the beginning of the learning curve as we attempt to use this tool, and thank you for reminding me of the humble posture we must take as we attempt to work with communities of interest. And I do agree there is a lot of self work and reflection we must do as facilitators as we work with communities, always seeking to learn from those we work with. I'm hoping that this tool becomes something else by the end of its use, one that truly reflects community life and realities...

Thank you for your provocative questions and honesty Rebeka, will definitely share stories of our experience.

best,
abbas

[Abbas Mancey]

Thanks Yeruva, really I’m learning as we're trying this out. We are about to test this tool out soon, and plan later on to use it in a few sessions at a gender conference. we'll definitely share the learnings from it. Good luck on 6 & 7 Dec!

[YERUVA ANTHONY REDDY]

Great work Abbas Mancey, We will be doing self assessment with CBOs of sex workers and MSM on systems strengthening (Organisational Development) on 6th and 7th of December 2010. Thanks for sharing your work, this will help us to describe levels of self assessment on systems strenthening (OD).

[rebeka sultana]

Hey Abbas,

Greetings from Jakarta!
Thanks for sharing Self/Community Assessment framework on GBV. I have not been following the discussions on ning lately so forgive me if I ask some strange questions that you have already discussed :-) First I congratulate you and the community that are inspired and felt that they must make a SA framework on GBV. Is it a 'Standard' for any community that wants to work on GBV? or this is for specific community and groups? Why I am asking this?
Let me share our learnings in Papua in Indonesia. There we facilitated the SALT approach and ACP tools to work and learn on Gender, Gender based violence and relaionships between men and women. As soon as we began meeting people and the communities we realized we got to get rid of the concepts of GBV, of Gender or what ever, Let learn from them. So when the SA frame work is developed at the end of a week long learning event it was community Assessment Framework not SA. The language they used was their own local language. You know with our work experience you , I and people like us can come up with 'beautiful SA' frame work but not necessarily that reflects a specific community. They are so diverse.
In Papua we began to learn even before we could land on a SA frame work:
Engage the community, all types of people and their representatives in the learning event,
It is about community addressing the issue, not outsiders, not us...
The first and formost question was 'who are we'? Policy makers? service providers? me as a wife, young girls group? Let it be clear at the out set of a SA frame work.

And then the SA for whom? "me and my husband who beats me often' ? 'or for our entire community'? Because before it becomes a community issue Domestic Violence happens between couple with out any trace of other people knowing it? So SA for whom? I trust you have gone through these questions, I willbe delighted to learn from those experiences.

I appreciate that in your SA you addressed men as well. Well done!

So please share your stories and then let us enjoy learning from this nice SA.

Best,
Rebeka