Sonke Gender Justice, in partnership with the universities of the Witwatersrand and Cape Town schools of Public Health, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of California San Francisco and the Centre for Health and Social Justice, Delhi, are meeting at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, starting today (4 November 2015) until Friday (6 November 2016) to discuss how to strengthen community mobilisation for health, human rights and gender justice.
The meeting objectives are five-fold:
- To build connections and draw inspiration from a wide range of individuals and organisations involved in community mobilisation and social accountability strategies.
- To deepen our understanding and question our assumptions about how community mobilisation contributes to social change by sharing experiences from a range of health and human rights organisations involved in community mobilisation and social accountability.
- To explore overlap, tensions and possibilities in public health and human rights approaches to community mobilisation.
- To generate a set of articles and case studies for publication as a special issue of a gender, health and human rights journal.
- To generate suggestions and insights for how Sonke can deepen its social accountability and community mobilisation work across South Africa.
TODAY’S PROGRAMME:
The meeting will start at 9:30 a.m. with welcoming remarks and introductions.
The full programme, consisting of a line-up of esteemed speakers, starts at 10:00 and will run as follows:
10:00 – 11:30: OPENING PANEL. NO EASY VICTOTIES: MAKING SENSE OF EVOLVING HUMAN RIGHTS STRATEGIES FOR ACHIEVING HEALTH, HUMAN RIGHTS AND GENDER JUSTICE.
- Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International. Lessons from four decades of activism for social justice.
- Vuyiseka Dubula, Centre for Civil Society/Sonke/TAC.
- Ruvimbo Tenga, Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce.
- Satish Singh, Centre for Health and Social Justice, New Delhi, India.
- David Tamba, Men’s Association for Gender Equality, Sierra Leone.
- Moderator: Chris Colvin, University of Cape Town.
11:30 – 12:00 TEA
12:00 – 1:30 SECOND SESSION: PUBLIC HEALTH AND COMMUNITY MOBILISATION.
- Mark Heywood, Section 27 and TAC.
- Sheri Lippman, UCSF; Theorising community mobilisation in BBR.
- Cathy Campbell, London School of Economics. “Community programmes to increase women’s agency: What counts as significant ‘social change’?”
- Moderator: Barbara Klugman, Independent Consultant and author of “The Role of membership-based organisations in constitutional democracies: Lessons from TAC in organising communities for social change.
1:30 – 2:30 LUNCH
2:30 – 4:00 THIRD SESSION: LESSONS IN COMMUNITY MOBILISATION AND SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY FROM SOUTH ASIA.
- Imtiaz Sheikh, MenEngage Bangladesh, Centre for Men and Masculinities Studies; Working with young men in schools.
- Shashikant Ahankari, Halo Medical Foundation, Maharashtra, India. Mobilising men for health.
- Shishir Chandra, Sahayog and MASVAW, Lucknow, India. Working for a youth-led youth policy in Uttar Pradesh.
- Moderator: Bilquis Tahira, Shirakat Foundation and MenEngage Pakistan.
4:00 – 5:00 BREAK-OUT GROUPS (including tea)
