We had a busy summer quarter – here’s a quick report-back on our coaching, training, and advocacy, as well as some exciting growth at the home front.
Celebrating our Fifth Anniversary–Board Matching Still Available
Thisyear, Asia Catalyst celebrates five years of helping to build grassroots groups
in East and Southeast Asia. As part of our “New Generation of Leaders” 5th
Anniversary Campaign, our board of directors has generously promised to match your donations dollar for dollar. That means a donation of $100 doubles to $200, and $500 will double to $1000! Please make a tax-deductible gift here.
TRAINING FOR GRASSROOTS GROUPS
At the end of the workshop, participants presented their plans to peers and voted to award small sub-grants that will provide seed funding for their projects, which included tackling medical discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV), and high fees for hepatitis B treatment. We also invited three members of the cohort to continue on as assistant trainers during the second year of the cohort in 2013. The assistant trainers will go through additional coaching, and if they pass an exam in one year, they can start their own NGO Leadership Cohorts using our curriculum and tools.
For the new cohort, we received 36 applications from Chinese health rights groups from 20 provinces, an increase in the number of applications over last year.
One-day workshops – In September, China program officer Mike Frick traveled to Harbin to hold a workshop on strategic
planning for eight grassroots groups from a provincial network of groups serving PLHIV and men who have sex with men.
Human rights training – Working with Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group and Korekata AIDS Law Center, Asia Catalyst brought twelve Thai and Chinese LGBT and sex worker advocates to Thailand for a two-day workshop to strengthen their advocacy strategies. The 12 activists included people working on police abuse against sex workers, legalization of gay marriage, and transgender peoples’ rights in the Thai military draft. They were excited to share experiences from China and Thailand, and agreed to support each other’s activism with solidarity actions.
The workshop, and feedback from participants, helped us to finish our newest manual Change It: Ending Rights Abuses. This is the third and final manual in our human rights curriculum: Know It, Prove It, Change It: A Rights Curriculum for Grassroots Groups. The first two manuals are available for free download in English, Chinese and Thai here.
RESEARCH AND ADVOCACY
In July, Asia Catalyst jointly published a report, “HIV Real-Name Testing: Is China Ready?” The report was researched and written by visiting research fellow Shen Tingting, Korekata AIDS Law Center. Tingting also supervised summer graduate intern John Signoriello as he worked on a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health on treatment access issues in China.
AIDS 2012
Asia Catalyst brought a delegation of 14 people to the International AIDS Conference in July, including four activists from China. Our activities there included roundtable discussions, a happy hour, a booth in the Global Village, training for other activists in human rights, and joining in protests and activities led by sex workers, drug users, and PLHIV.
Some of the Asia Catalyst Delegation marching in the We Can End AIDS mobilization.
China program staff helped with translation for our delegation of four activists, meetings with potential donors, UN officials and NGOs. They spoke on panels and roundtables, as well as in conferences held in conjunction with the AIDS conference. Topics included mainstreaming gender strategy in China’s HIV/AIDS response; rights of sex workers in China; programs for for male sex workers, and HIV prevention among ethnic minority women.
Asia Catalyst also held two workshops on human rights documentation and advocacy – one day-long workshop for forty activists from the US, Africa, Latin America and Asia; and a spontaneous workshop in the Sex Worker Networking Zone in the Global Village.
Left to right: Shen Tingting, Meg Davis, Yuan Wenli (Women’s Network Against HIV/AIDS), Hou Ye, Zheng Huang (China Sex Worker Organization Network) on a panel in the Global Village
at AIDS 2012
IN THE OFFICE
This quarter we expressed our appreciation to Sophie Richardson and Christina Lem, who completed their terms as members of the Board of Directors and are moving on to new projects. Sophie was one of the founding board members of Asia Catalyst, and served as the organization’s first board chair.
From February through August, we hosted our first visiting research fellow, Shen Tingting, as she wrote two reports
and conducted advocacy on health and human rights. Once we got used to having her around, we couldn’t imagine continuing without her, so this quarter we are proud to welcome Shen Tingting back as our Advocacy Director.
Tingting is an accomplished rights advocate. As one of the founders of the Korekata AIDS Law Center, she served as deputy director of its parent organization, Dongjen Center for Human Rights Education and Action, in Beijing, and founded and managed the organization’s sex worker outreach program. Tingting has an MA in social welfare from Renmin University of China. She will continue to work from Beijing, collaborating with Gisa Hartmann, our China Program Director. Tingting’s work in 2012-13 will focus on partnering with Chinese grassroots groups to advocate on such issues as treatment access, rights of marginalized communities, and non-discrimination.
We are also excited to announce that our former administrative coordinator, Brian Bonci, is now Director of Finance
and Operations. In the past year, Brian has developed Asia Catalyst’s administrative and financial systems, helping us to navigate many challenges and create a stronger basis for our program work.
We are pleased to welcome our new Administrative Assistant, Bonnie Tse. Bonnie is currently a junior at Hunter College with a passion for nutrition and dietetics. Bonnie was a Project AHEAD intern this past summer at Charles B. Wang Community Health Center where she and her fellow colleagues implemented a community health project focusing on parent and teen communication around sexual health
This quarter, we also said a sad farewell to Lizzy Berryman, our part-time media coordinator, who left Asia Catalyst to start a full-time position at Teach For China. We wish her well as she transitions into her new role. Last but not least, a warm thank you to Adair Kleinpeter-Ross, John Signoriello and Estelle Zhu, who gave their valuable time during this busy quarter as interns and volunteers.
