SRSP's mandate is to work for the ustainability and equitable development, which addresses the marginalized. It was felt that the gender programme would be helpful in focusing on the vulnerable, the need for integrating women issues into the programme was realized and a shift from WID to GAD took place.
This was initiated during Novib's eight years programme. The objective of the gender programme was to create gender sensitive environment within the organisation, and to facilitate the process of gender mainstreaming.
Gender and development is an integral part of SRSP's operational strategy. The organisation has been working on gender sensitivity and mainstreaming since mid 1996.The shift from WID to GAD promises a departure from symbolic involvement of women in development as beneficiaries to their meaningful participation in mainstream development as change agents alongside men.
The SRSP's strategy was of three levels--- organizational, programme and externally through networking in order to promote learning and cooperation. It shifts the programmes focus from women to gender relations
making the power relations between women and men the point of convergence. Based on the strategy, a gender policy was formulated in consultation with the staff members in November 2001.
In order to implement the gender policy in a proper and effective manner, gender groups are established both at Regional and Head Office level to act as gender movers to facilitate the process of gender sensitivity and provide continuing momentum for strengthening of women's programme. The purpose of forming these groups is to internalize the gender concept and programme within the organization and to create ownership of the gender policy both at organizational and programme level.
Gender Policy works at three levels i.e organizational, programme and external level.
SRSP encourages the recruitment of women staff at all levels, tilldate about 30% of women staff is appointed at mid-professional level, in addition the BoD is also chaired by woman.
It is also one of the policy actions that the women staff would be given preference to higher grades for initial few years relative to men. In most of the cases the social organization units are headed by women. Similarly one of the regional offices is also headed by a woman. Internship programme for women in non-traditional sectors e.g. engineering and finance have also been initiated both at Head Office and Regional Level. During the selection of all the new staff at SRSP, gender sensitive indicators in test and interviews are also given due consideration.
Apart from casual/formal leave, 2-3 months maternity leave has also been practiced both at Head Office and Regional level to facilitate the women. Paternity leave for 10 days is also provided to the men staff for their convenience. For the convenience of the married women, it is always preferred to appoint them near their residence.
One of the purposes of SRSP's gender policy is to create gender-fair environment21 in the organization. To serve the purpose all the staff members are enabled to keep the balance between their work and family life, specifically women are given relax hours to finish their work and leave the office in time. They are provided separate vehicles for field activities and are fully supported to complete their tasks within working hours.
At each region women (non-local) are provided separate hostels equipped with basic facilities and adequate security. Women staff members with children are provided day-care facilities. Gender groups as mentioned above also ensure gender-fair environment, by addressing all the issues regarding the violation of gender policy.
Capacity building of the staff regarding gender awareness and sensitization is the part of the policy. Training modules for the staff at both the support and mid-management are developed . To assess the effectiveness of the modules, a two-day workshop strengthening a gender friendly environment in SRSP was arranged by Social Sector and Gender Section for the support staff of SRSP. Orientation sessions about the gender policy are also imparted to the new staff to create the ownership of gender balanced approach and gender-fair environment in the organization.
At the programme level the policy seeks engendered actions in mission statements and the entire programme components. According to the policy, each programme component should include 40% resource allocation for women communities. As per the statistics as of January 2005, gender comparison stands at more than 30% in each programme component.
As per the implementation plan of the gender policy exclusive gender awareness training for both M/WCOs activists are conducted in order to create ownership of gender balance approach at grass-root level. In this context gender sessions are taken in Activists Basic and Leadership, Management and Skill Training LMST, but due to socio-cultural constraints and mental blocks of the people about the whole concept it is very difficult to impart exclusive gender awareness training specifically in MCOs. However where the environment is conducive, such training courses are imparted.
Exposure visits have been carried out for women activists to development agencies, networking and conferences.
Enterprise Development Programme (EDP) provides income-generating opportunities to both men and women community members. Different trainings imparted under EDP include linkage development, collective marketing & management, skill enhancement etc.
In case of women communities the physical infrastructure schemes regarding drinking water and sanitation have proven to be the most beneficial and useful, as they are subject to fetch water from the far-flung areas. The gender policy therefore gives emphasis on the separate PIs for women communities, so as to address their needs in a more effective manner.
SRSP with the assistance of Asian Development Bank ADB also has launched a project titled as "Gender and Governance" for the capacity building of local government representatives with prime focus on women councilors of District Abbottabad and Haripur. The project aims at formulating strategies to strengthen local level governance for effective delivery of public services and to promote accountability and transparency at the grass root level.
The project was run for a period of 18 months during which the implementation activities were provided by Rural Support Programme Network through SRSP while Aurat Foundation played its role for policy making. After the project ended successfully in March 2004 ADB extended it for a period of about six months i.e., from July to December 2004.
At the external level the organization seeks to strengthen the partnership with other organizations working according to the Gender and Development (GAD) approach. To serve the purpose SRSP is the active member of Gender voices forum, which as the name implies works to address the gender related issues. SRSP has twice been nominated for Gender Voices Forum. A newsletter "gender voices" is also published by SRSP during its tenure as a secretariat of the Gender Voices forum. Similarly, exposure visit (various organizations of Punjab working in gender) for the forum members was also arranged by SRSP in collaboration with IUCN. SRSP with the assistance of IUCN has published booklets on different themes such as education, physical infrastructure, Micro-finance, livelihood and environment according to the gender perspective. SRSP also serves as a gender resource person to different civil society organizations and academia. |
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