Learning for Change
Strengthening Women’s Voices means to address power imbalances as well as social and cultural norms that promote inequality. Advocating for social transformation starts within the concerned group itself. This is particularly true for organizations that promote gender equality. While it is not expected that every single staff member becomes a gender specialist, CARE and its partners believe that each staff member needs to have a minimum of understanding of the gender and diversity values and what it means for the organization’s vision, mission and practice. We also belief that every single staff can contribute to uphold and model these values, in day-to-day lives as well as at work.
CARE supports partners in their organizational development and strengthens their capacities to develop and implement innovative programs and advocacy strategies that are powerful tools to promote gender equality.
Key Lessons Learned and insights into L4C’s approach are documented in an overall report and regional learning briefs.
Learning for Change (L4C) | Strengthening Women’s Voices
„Learning for Change (L4C) Strengthening Women’s Voices in East Africa“ has been developed as a three year programme funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and CARE Österreich. The regional program is aiming at the promotion of meaningful participation of women in decision making processes at household, organizational, community and national levels. To this end, it promotes women’s leadership, gender equality and diversity, psychosocial well-being, engaging men and boys and advocacy in the context of women, peace and security and gender-based violence. L4C is being implemented by CARE Austria in cooperation with CARE country offices in Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda from April 2016 to March 2019, with an advocacy component in the African Great Lakes Region, Austria and at the EU level.
To strengthen the partners capacities, L4C pursues a threefold strategy by promoting
- conducive environments at organizational level to foster gender equality and psychosocial wellbeing within L4C partner organizations and CARE offices,
- gender transformative programming and the implementation of tools strengthening the participation of women at community level,
- national, regional and international influencing efforts on gender equality and women’s rights.
Capacity development and learning is largely based on CARE’s existing expertise. Technical experts from Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda support partner organisations to engage more effectively and to strengthen women’s voices in East Africa. They develop and facilitate workshops for partner organisations and CARE offices in the three countries which are complemented by on-the-job coaching.
The key areas of L4C’s organisational and capacity development
The implementation takes place at three inter-connected levels:
- At partner countries‘level, L4C facilitates organizational and capacity development of CARE and partners and initiates exchange of knowledge and experiences. Furthermore, CARE and partners engage together in evidence based influencing.
- At cross-country level, L4C facilitates knowledge transfer and the exchange of experiences and expertise among among CARE and partners in East Africa
- At international level, L4C links local to global. The focus is on regional evidence based influencing and advocating for Women Peace and Security (WPS) and gender equality.
Existing Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), Social Action and Analysis Groups (SAA) and other social structures of partners and CARE at community level will be vehicles to initiate positive changes project.
Please see L4C program’s “Theory of Change” for details.
Links
With our sincere thanks to Alexander von Wiedenbeck for his interest in our projects.
http://alexandervonwiedenbeck.com/
Sincere thanks to our major donor the Austrian Development Cooperation and to our private donor Acredia Versicherung AG
