UPCOMING EVENTS FOR QUARTER APRIL-JUNE 2019
PRE-TESTING OF THE DISABILITY FRIENDLY SEXUAL REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH (SRH) TRAINING MANUAL:
IDIWA team together with a consultant will conduct a pre-testing exercise of a training manual on Disability Friendly Sexual Reproductive Health for women and girls with disabilities with a team of health workers from Balawoli Health Center III. This manual is IDIWA’s 2019 priority under Amplify Change project on Accelerating access to disability friendly sexual reproductive health services for women and girls with disabilities in Kamuli district. The manual is a much-needed tool for the capacity building of health workers on provision of disability friendly sexual reproductive health services to women and girls with disabilities with dignity and respect for their human rights.
The manual is divided into six (6) modules aimed at building knowledge, influencing positive change in attitudes and building skills for health workers on providing disability friendly sexual reproductive health services for women and girls with disabilities.
COMMUNITY SENSITIZATION MEETINGS WITH WOMEN AND GIRLS DISABILITIES:
IDIWA conducts quarterly sexual reproductive health sensitization meetings with women and girls with disabilities twice every quarter to raise their awareness on their SRH rights. During the month of April IDIWA team will focus on helping the women and girls with disabilities to deepen their understanding on disability, sexuality and sexual reproductive health.
This quarter IDIWA team will conduct these quarterly sensitizations with women and girls with disabilities from Butansi and Balawoli sub counties in Kamuli District. These sensitizations will take place on the 9th and 24th of April 2019.
ADVOCATING AND LOBBYING FOR THE DRAFTING OF THE DISTRICT ORDINANCE ON DISABILITY FRIENDLY SRH SERVICES IN KAMULI DISTRICT:
In line with accelerating access to disability friendly sexual reproductive health services in Kamuli district as outlined in IDIWA’s Amplify Change project, IDIWA hired a legal consultant to take lead in the process of conducting consultation meetings with women and girls with disabilities to collect their views/ideas to be drafted into a district ordinance on disability friendly sexual reproductive health services for women and girls with disabilities.
Key consultation activities will include holding 2 meetings with women and girls with disabilities in Namwendwa and Nabwiguli sub counties, consultation meeting with key district officials and stakeholders to ensure that it meets the SRH needs of the women and girls with disabilities. Finally, presenting the draft district ordinance to the district executive committee for forwarding to the council.
CONDUCT BI-MONTHLY COMMUNITY RADIO PROGRAMMES ON SRH FOR WGDS:
IDIWA in partnership with media houses in Busoga sub region will conduct bi-monthly community radio talk shows aimed at creating awareness on the SRH rights of people with disabilities especially WGDs and ensuring that community members join our advocacy for the districts to prioritize provision of disability friendly SRH services for WGDs in the district plans and budgets.
In the same vein IDIWA will sponsor quarterly radio spot messages on disability friendly SRH services for women and girls with disabilities.
CAPACITY BUILDING TRAINING FOR TEACHERS AND PEER EDUCATORS:
IDIWA willConduct a 2-days training for 20 Senior women teachers and a 3-days training for 40 WGDs SRHR peer educators on supporting acceleration of access to disability friendly SRH services for girls with disabilities in Kamuli district.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND FEMINISM ADVOCACY TRAINING
Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world, from birth until death. They apply regardless of where you are from, what you believe or how you choose to live your life. They can never be taken away, although they can sometimes be restricted – for example if a person breaks the law, or in the interests of national security.
The word ‘feminism’ can be a scary and confusing word to some. Many people believe that feminism means hating men or wanting women to rule over everything– this could not be further from the truth chomas! Like many other countries, many Ugandans (including some women) don’t really understand what feminism means. Some think it’s about hating or punishing men. People also tend to believe that feminism is about making women the dominant gender — which are all incorrect of course.
IDIWA staff members as Human Rights Defenders therefore need to be well equipped, knowledgeable and skilled in order for them to deal with Human Rights abuses first by understanding concepts around it like equality, equity and feminism.
This training has been organized to benefit IDIWA staff members as human rights activists and its hoped that it will offer tailor-made knowledge and a set of skills.
FUNDRAISING AND RESOURCE MOBILIZATION
IDIWA recognizes mobilization of resources as the foundation for self-sustaining its programmes. Mobilizing resources is important in financing investment and social programmes, which are essential for organizational growth and for financial stability. Financing for organizational growth and financial stability is one of the challenges facing projects and programmes, however, resource mobilization can be managed more innovatively for greater effectiveness. In this context, a sound responsible social spending and a well-functioning and competitive financial system are the crucial elements in mobilizing resources.
Resource mobilization includes all the actions taken by an organization to ensure that it has the resources it needs to properly implement its strategies. The term “resource” covers not only financial resources, but also the human resources and goods and services made available to the organization.
This course is aimed at developing the knowledge and skills of IDIWA staff and board members for effective mobilization of resources for enhancing organization capacity to implement programmes and projects.
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS TRAINING
Every day around the world hundreds of Human rights defenders are exposed to political violence due to their defense of the rights of others. Risking their own physical and mental integrity, they strive to bring an end to impunity of human rights violations and to promote social justice and peace.
Human Rights Defenders often face harassment, detention, torture, defamation, suspension from their employment, denial of freedom of movement and difficulty in obtaining legal recognition for their associations. In some countries they are killed, abducted or “disappeared.”
These challenges require human rights defenders to have the necessary knowledge and skills to enable them implement comprehensive and dynamic security strategies in their day- to- day work. Giving defenders well-meant advice or recommending that they “take care” is not enough. Better security management is key.
This training has been organized to benefit IDIWA staff members, board members and some beneficiaries as human rights defenders and its hoped that it will offer tailor-made knowledge and a set of skills aimed at improving their personal and organizational security management.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Integrated Disabled Women Activities (IDIWA) is a voluntary, not for profit non-governmental Organization established in 2000 by women of different disability categories including physical and sensory disabilities together with parents of children with disabilities from Iganga District. The establishment of IDIWA came out of realization that women and girls with disabilities face heightened discrimination on account of gender and disability. They are among the poorest in their communities and efforts to address their plight are hindered by lack of coordination and sufficient information. This necessitated the birth of IDIWA to design self-help community-based development programs for women and girls with disabilities.
In 2015, IDIWA underwent structuring that opened doors to other vulnerable groups including the Elderly and People lives with HIV/AIDS, and secured a national mandate in 2017 and has started establishing existing in different parts of the country.
On annual basis, IDIWA board of directors convenes a general membership meeting to deliberate on matters of importance as they get updates from the secretariat and pave way forward for IDIWA. Therefore, in the month of June 2019 a general membership meeting will be convened.
RESULTS MONITORING OF THE LABOUR MARKET PROJECT
IDIWA is implementing a labour market project in the districts of Mayuge and Iganga funded by AWDF that aims at enhancing enjoyment of right to employment for persons with disabilities through raising awareness on the PWDs rights to decent employment, advocating for the enactment of a Mayuge district ordinance with a purpose to create conditions for equal participation of PWDs in the labour market.
This quarter a monitoring and evaluation team will be visiting Mayuge and Iganga districts’ communities, stake holders in public and private enterprises to document success stories as a result of implementing activities under AWDF project.