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Advocacy demands People’s Organisation

The focus of NGOs should be in mobilizing and organizing people to claim for their due rights established in the constitution and laws. The author of this article works with ActionAid, Nepal, an INGO very much involved in advocacy work.

The concern whether development NGOs should engage in advocacy work is not much of debate. Because all development stake holders, government and non-government, increasingly agree that poor people should have a say in decision-making process. In other word, people should have the right to participate in development process. Advocacy is about understanding one’s rights and claim.

Where does this commitment to advocacy come from and why do NGOs believe it is so important? 
In 1990 Nepal developed a new constitution and granted its citizens some fundamental rights. These rights include: right to equality, right to freedom, press and publication right, right regarding criminal justice, right against preventative detention, right to information, right to property, right against exploitation, right against exile, right to privacy, right to constitutional remedy. After 10 years of this constitution how much we have exercised these rights? In other word, are these rights in practice?

In a democratic system, state has an obligation to provide basic needs to its people. However, after 9 years of democracy government has failed to deliver even basic services to people. Constitution and laws were made so that fundamental rights guaranteed to the citizen may be upheld. In spite of the well meaning legal document in place injustice and exploitation continue to prevail. This proves that having good legal provision is not sufficient. The challenge lies in bringing these in to motion. NGOs can play some role in bringing these laws into motions only if they stop their current practice of taking the state’s role in delivering goods and services. Rather the focuses of NGOs should be in mobilizing and organising people to claim for their due rights established in the constitution and laws. My argument is not that NGOs should not provide service. They should provide service when the government fails to do so. This is because NGOs should not attempt to replace the role of the state. 

Many NGOs are now talking about advocacy, have parochial perception of it, and often only mean lobbying in the parliament. But advocacy needs to be understood in a broader perspective. It is a tool for social change, specifically for changing the lives of the poor people by working with various systems available in the democratic set-up. Therefore challenge before NGOs lies in making new laws in favor of the marginalised people on the one hand and enforcement of exciting laws on the other. It has been observed through practice unless there is strength of the people to bring laws into motion; laws on their own will not be enforced. Mobilization of people to assert their rights from the state becomes crucial. How to mobilize the people in non-violent manner and how to make executive machinery accountable towards its duty is a major task before Nepali NGOS today. This is a gray area where NGOS can play an important role. The main task of NGOs is to organise and prepare the people to assert their rights and for collective bargaining either with the state or with the concerned stake holders. Organisation gives collective bargaining power to the people. Organising people means bringing people around issues. Issues should be local, effect people’s lives and, people should feel angry about it.

Everywhere suppressed people have anger but how to handle it so that they can win is an important aspect. 

This whole process of Advocacy demands people’s organisation. This can challenge and change the power structure at grassroot level. It should destroy the feeling of vulnerability, fear and dependency of the poor people, who can restore the confidence and the bargaining power of the poor people. In comparison to service delivery approach, this process is painful and long. But it is rewarding because organising and organising alone can give strength to poor people to collectively challenge power and completely change their destiny. This whole process of struggle is empowering process. This is because it creates and draws on the strength, resources, confidence, participation and ownership of the people to change the unjust relations.

“We needed to be in a group” 

Giving people bargaining power…that’s what Advocacy is about. Although, it’s a new way of thinking development in Nepal some experiences have already been gained. Rita Tisdall writes about how misery was turned into new opportunities – only by demanding what actually is yours! The setting of the story is Bhimad, Tanahun District. 

Past

Before, there was a class and hostel at the local government school. There lived ten disabled children. There was one teacher during the day to teach them and a 16 years old boy employed as their caretaker. He was supposed to look after all these ten disabled children’s needs, for example, wash them, cook for them and nurture them.

The workload for this young boy was too much. At night he locked the children in and went his own way. Although the school was outside the village and was quite isolated, the villagers could hear the children cry at night. There were no toilets; each morning the children started their day by cleaning up their own feces. 

Completely accidentally, one morning at four o’clock an outsider met up at the school.

The next six months numerous meetings were held with school teachers, school officials, parents to the children of the class, parents to disabled children who had refused to send their children to this class and local elected representatives. The responsibility of what had happened lies of course with the school, the children were in their care. But, there were no consequences; they were just children, disabled children! 
But, a pressing question was why the parents and local villagers had done nothing!

Common answers were: 

“ I knew it was wrong that the children were crying at night but we thought that there were ghosts, those children are not like us”

“ They said it was best for our child to put him there, it was like cutting off my right arm. I have never gone to school so how was I supposed to know, I just wanted the best and maybe they could have cured him” 

“ They would not take her into the local school, here she could get a free school uniform and free food”

“ They never cared about our children, they were only interested in getting money, that’s the way it is here”

“ I’ve heard in the radio that Denmark gives lots of money to disabled children, but it gets eaten up. These village people don’t know any better but I would never send my child to such a place”

“We just have to take what they give us, we didn’t have a choice”

This sentence became the motor of change; it sparked off lots of questions:

Is it true that you just have to accept what you’re given?
Is it true that your children can be refused admission to governmental schools because they are disabled?

Should you accept that the hospital refuses to see your child because she is disabled? 

Is it true that there is money for children with disabilities in the District and if there is, who is using it?

A parents group was formed and from this a Users Group was formed comprising parents to disabled children and disabled adults. They receive technical support from BPEP in the form of a Development Worker who was collaborating with a host of different NGO’s working with different aspects of disabilities.

Present

To day, the hostel is replaced with a day class. Here there is room for fifteen students. Not all the children come to school each day; the class is flexible in the sense that it accommodates the needs and resources of the different families. Magali comes to school only two days a week because she has to be accompanied by a family member and this suits them best, whereas Ram comes every day. Parents are a part of the everyday picture of the class.

The teacher and caretaker boy are replaced by two new teachers and a new teacher’s helper; all have disabled children of their own. The Users Group selected them after they had asked for the previous teacher to be removed. The class is now a center for information and referrals for seven VDCs. 

One hundred and seventy disabled children have been seen by the center over the past year. Of these sixty have been operated, the costs were covered by the parents, the Village Development Committee or by different hospitals poor funds. A growing number of children are beeing admitted to local schools, presently forty are in the process of being integrated. A new center has been built to house these activities, partly funded by BPEP but mainly funded by the local VDC. 

The Users Group has access to all budgetary matters and together with the staff submits budgetary suggestions to the District Education Office, who have now agreed two yearly budgets, before an unheard of practice in Nepal.

The center is now a member of a twenty-four strong NGO networking group in the region. It has very strong links to local referral institutions and the staffs are practiced in applying for support for poor families.

Common remarks now are:

“We didn’t believe that we could influence the big people, but now we know we can” -Teacher

“ We know the system now, and we know that we need to know more” -Teacher

“We needed to be in a group” -Parent.

“We thought we needed money, but all of this is done on the same budget as before, together with a lot of commitment” -Users Group member

“We have now a lot of local support and acceptance, because they have seen everyday change ” -Teacher

Future

Parental empowerment must not end with mobilization of individual parents or setting up of local parents’ groups. It has to go beyond localities into national advocacy organizations, which can in future make the voice of disabled people and their families heard.

“ We want in the future to contribute financially to your activities at the center” -VDC Chairman.

“We want to make a budget parallel to the government so we can support more families” -Users Group

“We need to support the disabled children and teachers more in the local schools” -Teacher

“ We need to link up with other parent groups” -Parent.

“ We need to do some local fundraising, there are many children, now” -Users Group member

“ We need to get stronger, we need to influence the people at the top so the teachers in the schools will be better, so the hospitals treat all children equally ” -Users Group member

Epilogue

On the road from past to present there have been many barriers, conflicts and painful experiences a description of which you will not get here. But what is crystal clear is that a group of people who thought they could do nothing has changed things. They formed a group, they got access to the district budget, they have now influence on the school budget and they are certainty watchdogs for their children’s rights.
They go in groups to the hospital, some have learned the strings of how to use this system, so they help the new. Children are being admitted into local schools all over the place.

In the school the teachers are not trained to support these children so now they are thinking about how they can help “make” better teachers. In the future this group has planned to invite the people from the top to see and they expect then to listen to their ideas on what makes a good teacher!

There has been no awareness training, no pumping of money of any kind into this group there has been small support in the form of a facilitator, who mainly asked questions and shared information.

They have found their own power and they have started to demand some of their and their children’s rights! 

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