Follow-Up Workshops

On the final day of the workshop participants divided into parallel workshops, each discussing plans for follow-up actions and activities. Due to limitations of time these discussions focused on two particular themes:

  1. The Resource Kit
  2. Activities related to the NGO Forum in Nairobi

Practical details on these two themes were further discussed in small meetings after the official ending of the meeting.

 

THE RESOURCE KIT

Why a Resource Kit?

The Resource Kit should aim to:

  1. Improve projects for women by NGOs, trade unions etc.
  2. Act as a tool for use in the field
  3. Act as a tool for influencing policy making
  4. Facilitate communication, mobilization, linkages and networking

For whom?

The Resource Kit should be primarily for popular groups

Contents:

The Resource Kit should contain:

  1. Specific examples of women in NGOs, their experiences, and examples of lobbying, campaigning, networking, training, consciousness-raising processes, participatory research and efforts to influence the structures and functioning of organizations, their programmes and processes. The Kit should highlight both problems and success stories.
  2. A selection of the case studies mentioned in the workshop; analysis of these practical experiences and evaluation on the approaches taken.
  3. Separate sections highlighting experiences of different sectors of women such as peasants, workers, urban poor, housewives, indigenous people, etc.
  4. Problems experienced within and with other organizations, the solutions and failures. Distinctions should be made between problems and experiences with mixed (male/female) and women's organizations.
  5. Indication of manuals that include funding sources for women's projects.

Practical details:

  1. Include entire process in case studies: project design, project goals, contents, function, evaluation etc.
  2. Include detailed description of games, the process and the dynamics of using the games etc.
  3. Produce in both English and Spanish, also French if possible.
  4. Use existing networks and investigate new distribution channels.

Format of the Resource Kit:

  1. Loose-leaf, addable to and subtractable from.
  2. Inclusion of tapes, slides.
  3. Low literacy skills visual material, tapes etc.
  4. Colour coding
  5. Illustrations.

Before participants left the meeting a draft list was circulated of papers and case studies to be included in the Resource Kit.

ACTIVITIES RELATED TO NAIROBI EVENTS

Pre-Nairobi actions:

  1. Lobbying national delegations in preparing the UN conference.
  2. National activities suggested.
  3. Fundraising.
  4. Press release and articles.
  5. Drafting a letter to the Forum Planning committee emphasizing:
    • the lack of information on Third World organizations, how to get there, how to get women there from countries with security and other problems
    • the lack of Third World women in the Planning Committee
    • the concern about languages used in the conference and translation

At the same time suggesting:

    • advancing list of workshops
    • diverse women on panels, for instance activists and researchers, etc
    • international and regional forums on health, housing, education, etc.
  1. Suggesting resource persons to the Planning Committee.
  2. Distributing information through our existing networks.
  3. Drafting a manifesto which will be circulated to our networks asking for inputs, and will then be presented in Nairobi.

A Planning Committee responsible for requesting as well as coordinating a space in Nairobi and exploring fundings for participants and resource persons is suggested.

Practical suggestions on how to participate in Nairobi:

  1. Lobbying national delegations during the Nairobi conference.
  2. Audiovisual aids.
  3. Resource kit.
  4. Isis International/ICDA acting as a clearing house for information or materials to be presented in Nairobi.

Other suggestions:

  1. Organize regional meetings.
  2. Request Spanish women's institute organizing meeting for Latin American women on their way to Nairobi to invite other European women.
  3. Circulate information about INTERDOC through existing networks.
  4. Form women's press services.
  5. ICDA encourages inviting women from development NGOs for an international meeting in early 1986.