(Page 19 of 25) - T-Shirts to Web Links: Women Connect! Building Communications Capacity with Women's NGOs authored by Mayer, Doe., pillsbury, barbara. and mukenge, muadi.

There is both need and opportunity for women’s organizations to link with government health ministries and
health care providers. Most Ministry of Health staff and service providers are generally not familiar with the NGO
community and vice versa. Government staff in Zimbabwe, Zambia and many other countries possess considerable
skills in conducting media campaigns on health and social issues. The Women Connect! training workshop used
government-sponsored media campaigns (a Youth Responsibility campaign, a Vitamin A campaign and an
HIV/AIDS campaign) as case studies, with the campaign staff facilitating the sessions. The presentation of
successful well-researched national campaigns as case studies during training helped the women’s organizations
understand how they can design and implement campaigns themselves. While the campaigns presented as case
studies were carried out by large agencies with substantial resources, the training outlined a process that could be
adopted at a modest scale by small organizations. There are many lessons and strategies that can be shared in both
directions.

Networking

Women’s NGOs say they want more structured collaboration and networking with each other in order to learn,
avoid duplication and work more strategically, but it is difficult. Networking and collaboration should never be
assumed. The women’s NGO community operates in a context of limited resources and competing agendas --
which often discourages networking. Networking is typically sporadic and crisis-driven. Women’s groups do
collaborate well at times, but usually around a crisis. While ICT makes it easier for groups to reach each other
without physically connecting, there is still need for a specific time when groups can meet to discuss program
strategies.

Northern donors and NGOs supporting southern NGOs can foster greater collaboration among the southern
NGOs by encouraging them to work together around common issues. The external evaluator found “numerous
examples of strategic partnerships and alliances that would seem to have made sense in this process.” The
evaluation stated: “Groups producing materials on reproductive health, HIV/AIDS or violence against women, for
example -- whether in repackaging projects, or as part of media campaigns -- would have been well-served by
combining forces, sharing topics, resources and distribution channels, rather than each producing different
publications and then running out of funds to produce more, let alone distribute these. Despite several group
meetings and suggestions by the project management team, these kinds of partnerships failed to materialize. This
raises important questions regarding the design of Women Connect!. The issue is whether instead of providing
several small grants to many organizations, fewer larger grants could have been provided to a cluster or clusters of
organizations around a few specific themes that have particular relevance to women’s health and well-being”
(Morna 2001, pp.74-75). The fact that Women Connect! allowed the groups such latitude in picking topics for their
small-grants projects meant that not many groups shared the same topics or objectives.

Umbrella organizations may seem optimal partners, but do not automatically facilitate networking. Our attempt
to work through existing umbrella organizations to foster networking and produce a “cascade” of benefits to the
NGO community was not very successful. In spite of their good will, none of the umbrella organizations fully
functioned in the way we had envisioned – as equal partners that would participate in the training and follow
through thereafter supporting project activities. Often they have competing priorities such as legislative lobbying
and government mishandling of women’s issues. The umbrella organization may also be competing for funding

For example, there is a tradition in the Buganda tribe in Uganda that when the
king marries he takes a young virgin into his household along with his wife.
That girl is given a home and support but she is taken out of school and deprived
of a normal life. In 1998 when the current king married, women’s groups in
Uganda mobilized to try to rescue the 12-year-old girl who had been chosen for
this “honor.” They e-mailed colleagues the world over asking them to e-mail
the king with their concerns about this traditional practice. The king, after
receiving a huge number of protest messages, decided the practice was not
appropriate for a modern king and allowed the young girl to go back to her
family and school.