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Earthquake Reconstruction Programme Pakistan

Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO) has been engaged in relief, early recovery and rehabilitation activities in earthquake areas in collaboration with its partner organizations including Earthquake Reconstruction & Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA), Un-Habitat and Joint Action Committee for Earthquake Response (JAC-ER) since October 2005. However, the organization started direct implementation in March 2007 from Hattian Bala and Chakkama union councils. Since May 2008, SPO has been implementing the project titled Earthquake Reconstruction Program, a joint venture of SPO, Oxfam GB and Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in district Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Neelum. The program focuses on health, education, livelihood, disaster risk reduction whereas gender is a cross cutting theme. The deprived and underprivileged have been targeted with a view to address the significant social issues like Violence against Women (VAW).

Projects

Project Title: Improving Mother and Child Health Care by Capacity Building of Health Facilities Project Donor: USAID through Jhpiego Project Duration: Thirty Months (starting from January 2015) Project Location: Sindh (District Jacobabad) Project Brief: SPO will work with 90 health facilities of district Jacobabad for improving mother and child health care services. Main activities which SPO will carry out include; Mobilize health professionals (both medical and para medical) to participate in the trainings organized jointly by SPO and Jhpiego. Work with district health department to identify the supply side needs and share them with Jhpiego for provision. Provision of transport/ambulance to pregnant women in case of complex deliveries to avoid three delays leading to maternal and newborn mortalities Conduct community events to raise awareness about MNCH issues and ways of addressing them. Conducting trainings after receiving ToT on complex MNCH issues and ways to deal with them Develop referral system for women to access better pre, post and anti-natal services. Project Status: Ongoing Project Title:Community Mobilization for Getting Out of School Children Enrolled in Schools Project Donor:DFID via Adam Smith International (ASI) under Punjab Education Support Project-2 (PESP2) Project Duration:Nine months (starting from April 1, 2015) with a possibility of extension for three years Project Location:DistrictBahawalnagar& District Bahawalpur Project Brief: SPO signed a project with ASI for getting out of school children enrolled in schools. The project aims to get 30000 children from around 500 villages of district Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar enrolled in school. It is a milestone based project and payment will be made, based on number of children enrolled in schools. The activities of the project include; Doing a baseline of out of school children Working with SMCs and education department to support enrolment campaigns Taking need based special initiatives like provision of transport to deserving children, financial support to cover cost of uniform, stationary or providing audio visual aids to schools where needed. Awards for best performing teachers and students in terms of enrolment and retention of children at schools Counseling sessions with mothers Establishing peer groups of children for motivating out of school children to join schools Training of teachers for making child friendly classrooms and on child friendly behaviors Initially the project is approved for nine months to pilot this initiative in two districts with a possibility of extension for three more years subject to successful implementation of pilot. It is important to note that SPO was the only organization selected for the project through social mobilization approach. The rest two organizations selected for pilot phase are service delivery organizations including Ghazali Education Trust and BRAC who will implement the project in two other districts. This is an opportunity on one side, hence a challenge on the other to prove the social mobilization approach to be the best approach for getting children enrolled in schools. Project Status: Ongoing Project Title:Enhancing Capacities for Transparent and Accountable Local Governance Project Donor:USAID via Citizens Voice project Project Duration:One year (starting from March 31st 2015) Project Location:South Punjab (Districts Multan, Muzaffargarh and Khanewal), Sindh (Districts Thatta, Badin and Karachi) Project Brief: The scope of the project is likely to be achieved by sensitizing civil society and local political leadership on the elements of transparency and accountability of local governance. This will be done by building the capacities through trainings and interaction among the target groups of Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and politicians.An approximate group of 60 CBOs (10 in each district) and 120 politicians (20 in each district from prominent political parties of PML (N), PTI, PPP and PML (F)) will be engaged in this project and would serve as change makers. The capacity building of both the groups would revolve around the Right to Information Act 2013 in Punjab and on Freedom of Information Act 2006 in Sindh and district budget tracking and monitoring. In addition both the groups would also be sensitized on Advocacy &Lobbying skills to better perform their roles towards ensuring transparency and accountability in local governance. The action plans of both the groups would target issues related to service delivery and demand creation around the five departments of health, education, Local Government &Rural Development (LG&RD), Women Development and Public Health Engineering Departments. The office of Ombudsman and Information Commission would be closely involved in the project interventions. The broad strategy of the project would revolve around the following targets: Baseline and end line assessments with the target groups (CBOs & politicians) for demonstrating gaps in their capacity to perform their roles and responsibilities towards transparency Capacity building of the target groups on RTI &FOI and budget tracking mechanisms Developing linkage among the target groups and other relevant stakeholders from public and private domains on ensuring transparent and accountable governance in in their respective districts and provinces Presenting token of appreciation to the best performers (individuals & departments) for their performance in ensuring transparency and accountability in their respective departments Dissemination of information among wider audience in the form of case studies on the process of complaint lodging and complaint handing by the office of ombudsman/ information commissions. Project Status: Ongoing Project Title: Access to Clean Drinking Water & Health and Hygiene Promotions for Temporarily Dislocated Person (TDPs) of North Waziristan Project Donor: World Vision International Project Duration: Four months (starting from March 2015) Project Location: District DI Khan Project Brief: SPO will address the immediate needs of TDPs as communicated by District Government D I Khan while assessing the feasibility for the proposed project: Provision of the adequate supply of clean drinking water to TDPs and host families Increase awareness about health & hygiene to the TDPs and Provision of health & hygiene kits The anticipated activities that fulfill the immediate needs are: Installation of water filtration plant Project Status: Ongoing Project Title: Citizens First, Increasing Human Security in Pakistan and Afghanistan Project Donor: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), the Netherlands through Oxfam Novib Project Duration: 1st April 2015 to 30th June 2016 Project Location: Sindh (Khairpur, Sukkur, Shikarpur and Larkana Districts) Project Theme & Brief: SPO will work with

Social Justice

Social justice is a result of complex interplay of several political, institutional, cultural ethos, and socio-economic factors. Therefore, it is imperative to remove the hindrances that create problems in the achievement of social justice and subject people to social injustice. True to its mission of establishing a socially just system and society, SPO has initiated a Social Justice Programme. The programme intends to establish and strengthen community-rooted mechanisms in order to secure the well being of people, irrespective of caste, creed, colour or sex, by improving their quality of life. The programme’s aim is to support mechanisms largely in the public sector, and those devised by civil society in the areas of basic education, primary healthcare, livelihood support to women and relief and rehabilitation after natural disasters in areas where SPO works. The programme focuses on three major areas namely improving public services, women rights and disaster preparedness. Since majority of low-income communities rely on public services, they bear the brunt of deterioration in public service. SPO has taken measures to ameliorate public services in education and health sector by introducing citizens monitoring. Under this output monitoring committees will be mobilized in order to “bring government closer to the people”. In the activities related to women rights different dimensions of women livelihood, empowerment and development are covered. This component deals with different inter-related strategies: recognizing women’s right to resources and their livelihood and literacy strategies; the challenge of democratic governance and provision of institutional systems to protect women from violence and discrimination. The component of Disaster Preparedness provides trainings and assists national disaster management authority in developing policies and procedures and planning preparedness. These activities aim at ensuring timely disaster preparation and effective emergency response mechanism at the community, district and national level. SPO strives to empower marginalized communities through its activities and interventions across Pakistan. To appreciate the struggle of women, men and communities in bringing about change in their lives and communities, SPO regularly compiles and publishes their stories in the shape of case studies. These stories do not represent an overall view of the situation but they definitely represent snippets of the bigger picture

Compliance Report

Democratic Governance

Since its inception Pakistan has mostly been ruled by undemocratic forces. Therefore, its state structure lacks a mechanism that ensures participation of the people in issues pertinent to governance. Absence of strong participatory mechanism in governance model has marginalised certain segments and communities of the society. Following its vision of democratic, socially just and tolerant society guided by participatory principles, SPO endeavors to address the issue of governance through its programme of Democratic Governance. The Democratic Governance Programme emphasises mainstreaming of marginalised communities in decision making processes for the realisation of basic human rights as enunciated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Constitution of Pakistan. It will ultimately lead to the next stage of claiming rights from policy and decision making institutions through a democratic struggle. This will be achieved through extensive and sustained political education via CSNs. The people will be enabled and encouraged through education and training to participate fully in all forms of voluntary activities for social development. Youth, the most vibrant section of the society, will also be engaged and mainstreamed in social and political processes through this programme. The programme geared to achieve three outputs through different activities divided into three components. The crux of first component of these activities is to enhance conceptual clarity on rights based approaches so that every partner organization has a clear conceptual framework for its activities. Later these organizations will become instrumental in raising awareness about human rights, planning, managing and sustaining programs concerning human rights education in their communities. Second component relates to the organizational management training of partner organizations to ensure that there is an increased capacity to promote and practice sustainable, transparent and accountable systems within the organization. Also, this responds to needs in health, education, livelihoods and income generation. Under the activities of third component political workers will receive skills training, development knowledge and problem solving techniques. In addition, they will have the opportunity to conduct events at district level so that they may gain a sense of self-confidence and address development issues, and transfer knowledge with the political parties. All of the programme activities aim at bringing about change in different tiers of governance ranging from sub-district and CBOs, MAs and WOs to parliament, ministries and state departments. The activities will cumulatively contribute to the overall out of Democratic Governance Programme in the shape of “enhanced capacity of community organization and public interest institutions to exercise and promote democratic structures at all levels.” SPO strives to empower marginalized communities through its activities and interventions across Pakistan. To appreciate the struggle of women, men and communities in bringing about change in their lives and communities, SPO regularly compiles and publishes their stories in the shape of case studies. These stories do not represent an overall view of the situation but they definitely represent snippets of the bigger picture

Contact Us

National Centre House No. 30-A, Main Nazim-uddin Road, F-10/4, Islamabad Tel: (+92-51) 2104677, 2104679, 2104680 Fax: (+92-51) 2112787 Email: info@spopk.org www.spopk.org |Top| Peshawar House 15, Street 1, Sector N/4, Phase-4, Hayatabad, Peshawar. Tel: 091-5811792,5810021 Fax: 091-5813089 Email: peshawar@spopk.org |Top| D.I. Khan House No.2, Street No. 2, Wensam Housing Society, Dera. Ismail. Khan Cannt. Tel: 0966-713231 Fax: 0966-712231 Email: dikhan@spopk.org |Top| Quetta House 58-A, Near Pak Japan Cultural Center, Jinnah town, Quetta. Tel: 081-2863701, 2863702 Fax: 081-2863703 Email: quetta@spopk.org |Top| Turbat Pasni Road, Turbat, Mekran. Tel: 0852-412333,412240 Fax: 0852-413884 Email: turbat@spopk.org |Top| Hyderabad Plot No. 158/2 Behind M. Usman Deplai Scholars Academy, Alamdar Chowk, Grid Station Qasimabad, Hyderabad. Tel: 022-2654725, 2655399, 2655712 Fax: 022-2652126 Email: hyderabad@spopk.org |Top| Karachi G-22, B/2, Park Lane Clifton Block 05 Karachi Tel: 021-5836213, 5873405 Fax: 021-5873794 Email: Karachi@spopk.org |Top| Multan House No.(339,334), Block D, Shah Rukan-e-Alam Colony, Multan. Tel: 061-6772995, 6563604 Fax: 061-6772996 Email: multan@spopk.org |Top| Lahore House No: 76-A, Sher Shah Block, New Garden Town, Lahore. Tel: 042-35863211, 35863212 Fax:042-35863213 Email: lahore@spopk.org |Top| Muzaffarabad House No: 35-B, Upper Chattar, Muzaffarabad. Tel: 058810-34432 Fax:058810-34415 Email: muzaffarabad@spopk.org |Top|

Representation on HR Forum

Human Resource Development Network (HRDN) The Human Resource Development Network (HRDN), conceived by like minded HRD professionals in 1999 and became functional in March 2000, has grown steadily over the years. It originated as a Network of professionals and to provide them a platform where they could share ideas and newer concepts in the field of development, emerging around the globe and then acclimatize and practice them at national/regional level. The idea was also to set up a network that should work as a bridge between individual development professionals and organizations. SPO enjoys life time Organizational Membership of HRDN and is representing on its BOD for the last three years. Pakistan Human Resource Network (PHRN) PHRN is a network of Human Resources Professionals of Development Sector in Islamabad. This is a platform hosted by The Asia Foundation for HR professionals of the sector for sharing best practices, arranging lectures, expert talks and networking. SPO is a member of the advisory committee of PHRN. The Training Forum – Islamabad Chapter SPO represents on the forum which is hosted by SDPI (Sustainable Development Policy Institute). This forum provides the opportunity to HR Professionals from different sectors to share their thoughts on current trends and best practices.

Category: SPO