Asia Catalyst Update
May 2011
Here’s what we did with your help in the last quarter. Our work to help grassroots Asian AIDS groups to survive
and thrive is going strong. But we need your help to help others. Please give: www.asiacatalyst.org/donate
Asia Catalyst quoted in the New York Times this week, here: https://nyti.ms/kgTdfH
[TECHNICAL
ASSISTANCE]
Consulting for grassroots groups – In late 2010, we issued an open call for applications for groups that want to be
coached on organizational management skills. We selected three groups for help in 2011.
Gisa Hartmann, our China Program Director, went to China for three weeks in March to
work with each group. In Beijing, she spent two days with Guiding Star, a drug
user advocacy group. Wang Kun, one of the organization’s two directors, had
unexpectedly passed away the previous week – but the group was determined to go
ahead with our workshop and developed a draft strategic plan for the year.
Next she went to Yunnan Province. She spent two weekend evenings in meetings with
Tonghua She, a lesbian support and advocacy group in Kunming, to fine-tune their
volunteer management system. She then hopped a car to Mengzi in the Red River
region of Yunnan, where she spent two days working with Kangxin Home, a drug
user advocacy group, on their first strategic plan.
Each of these groups will work on their plans for the next few months, with Gisa
providing support through email and phone calls. She will return in June for a second round of
workshops. Groups that seem to benefit from this round of training will be
eligible to apply for more coaching assistance later this year.
Cohort training for NGO directors
– In March, we also began a trial run of a new approach in which we will train
four NGO representatives from China’s national network of sex workers in a
series of three sessions, offering coaching and support in person and through
skype in between each session. Gisa spent a couple of days working with the
secretary of the network, Cai Minghong, and three directors from member groups
on strategic planning and on training skills.
We will have two more workshop sessions in July and September, and we
will also bring them together with members of the Asia Pacific Network of Sex
Workers from Thailand and Myanmar.
Korekata AIDS Law Center
– In February, Asia Catalyst hosted director Xu Haibo in New York and
Washington, DC. We gave him some training in how to hold short, effective
advocacy meetings (the “elevator pitch”). We brought him to several law schools
in New York, Philadelphia and DC, and with help from the board, also arranged
meetings with China and HIV/AIDS experts. In addition, we met with Haibo and
later with his colleagues Li Dan and Shen Tingting about their plans to grow
the organization.
Asia Report – The director of
our Chinese-language site on activism in Southeast Asia, Hou Ye, is working
with the director of the site HIV in
Myanmar to develop a new shared site, Hi!
Asia: HIV Information for Asia. Our consulting program director, Ariel
Herrera, helped them to develop a strategic plan in December. AC director Meg
Davis spent a day working with them on their plan and activity timeline in
March. In June, she will return to help develop by-laws and internal financial
controls to launch them as a separate, independent NGO by the end of the year.
Myanmar – Meg also spent a
day working with two representatives of the Myanmar National Network of Sex
Workers to train them in strategic planning.
Phoenix – For the past year and a half, Asia Catalyst
provided subgrants and training in planning, management, documentation and
advocacy to Phoenix, a group of sex workers in Yunnan Province. In February,
based on internal issues we were unable to resolve, we made the difficult
decision to end the partnership and refund the grants to our donors. We hope to
see the organization re-establish itself in the future.
[ONLINE RESOURCES]
In February, we published the Chinese translation of Prove It: Documenting Rights Abuses. (Available for free download at https://www.asiacatalyst.org/news/kipici.html)
This is the first volume to come out from our series Know It, Prove It, Change It: A Rights Curriculum for Grassroots Groups, which we are creating jointly with Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group and
Korekata AIDS Law Center. Stay tuned for the Thai version soon – as well as the
second volume of the series, due out later this year.
Meanwhile, our writer and editor Carol Wang is developing a series of short handouts on or
capacity-building work – two or three-page brochures on strategic planning,
volunteer management, and financial planning. These materials will go online this
summer in English and in Chinese, and will become part of our NGO Survival Handbook later this year.
[ADVOCACY]
Compensation research – While every country in the world has had an HIV-tainted blood disaster of some kind,
China’s is by far the largest in number of victims and length of the disaster.
To date, there has been no government compensation program for the thousands of
victims who became HIV-positive due to blood sales and blood transfusions in
the 1990s.
Asia Catalyst and Korekata AIDS Law Center in Beijing are partnering on a project,
sponsored by UNAIDS, to document the varying challenges faced by victims of
tainted blood transmission in China when they try to obtain compensation. You
can see our 2007 report on this issue at http:www.asiacatalyst.org/news.html.
Universal access to treatment
– In March, Meg participated in the Asia-Pacific Regional Consultation on
Universal Access in Bangkok, where she was active in the human rights sub-group
and helped to craft some targeted recommendations on decriminalization of sex
work and drug use, and on registration of and free expression rights of NGOs.
On our quarterly trips to Asia, both Meg and Gisa engaged in advocacy meetings in
Beijing and Bangkok aimed at promoting a rights-based approach as part of the
AIDS response, and at promoting greater space for and funding for grassroots
HIV/AIDS NGOs. We’ll be back in China and Thailand again in June to follow up.
Casework – This winter, we worked with
SECTION27 to draft a sign-on letter calling for the release of jailed AIDS activist Tian Xi, and
helped to get dozens of Asian NGOs from around the Asia-Pacific region,
including two regional AIDS NGO networks, to sign onto the letter. In March, our
colleague and former fellowship recipient Chang Kun was attacked by thugs after
speaking about his work in Anhui Province. We continue to support colleagues
who face repercussions for their work, arranging visiting fellowships at
overseas NGOs and universities, writing letters of support, and monitoring
their cases.
[EVENTS]
Our board of directors held two lively and well-attended cocktail parties in New
York and Washington D.C. to welcome AIDS lawyer Xu Haibo.
Meg also gave an informal presentation to China program officers who are part of
the Lingnan Lunch group at the China Institute; spoke on civil society in China at a conference organized by Fordham
University’s Leitner Center; and chaired a panel on social activism in China at the annual
meeting of the Association for Asian Studies.
[IN MEMORIAM]
We were very saddened to learn of the untimely death of our colleague Wang Kun,
co-director of Guiding Star in Beijing. Guiding Star is a leading drug user
organization, and Wang Kun was a tireless advocate for the rights of drug
users. Our thoughts are with his family and colleagues.
[ON THE HOME FRONT]
Our board of directors continues to grow. This quarter we welcomed a new director,
Ann Hotung, who has expertise on Hong Kong law. Our founding board member Prof.
Jerome Cohen moved to emeritus board member status.
Our spring graduate intern, C. Cheng, did background research for the report on
compensation for tainted blood transmissions in China. He is working this
summer as a consultant to finish the report.
This summer, we will welcome two undergraduate interns: Amy Gordon (American
University) and Preetha Swamy (Austin College).
[LEND A HAND]
Individual donations from supporters like you are essential to our ability to help partner
groups in Asia to survive and thrive.
To make a secure, tax-deductible gift via Paypal, go to www.asiacatalyst.org/donate.
You can also give through our Facebook Cause page for Asia Catalyst. Or, mail a
check to: Asia Catalyst, P.O. Box 20839, New York, NY 10009.
We always welcome comments and suggestions at info@asiacatalyst.org.
