Asia Catalyst aims to encourage regional exchange and collaboration through our newest initiative – the Health Rights Advocacy Training Program. The program builds off of the rights training curriculum, Know It, Prove It, Change It: A Rights Curriculum for Grassroots Groups – a joint project with Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group (TTAG) and Dongjen Center for Human Rights Education and Action.
On May 20, 2013 Asia Catalyst brought together eighteen health rights advocates from nine countries across East and Southeast Asia who are promoting the rights of marginalized communities directly affected by HIV/AIDS. The group spent a week in Bangkok, Thailand, where they participated in sessions led by experts in health rights and advocacy skills, received peer-feedback on their advocacy projects, and visited organizations that are leading grassroots movements in sex worker rights and fighting discrimination and stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS. Hai Vuong, a health rights advocate and photographer from Supporting Community Development Initiatives in Vietnam, captured some of the highlights.
Over the next five months, Asia Catalyst will facilitate the cooperation and peer-learning begun in Bangkok by providing opportunities for monthly advocacy coaching, as well as reconvening the participants in Bangkok before the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) so they can share successes and challenges met while implementing their advocacy projects and plan for future collaboration.
Asia Catalyst is excited to work with this group of innovative and dedicated health rights advocates. Stay tuned for blog posts about the inspiring work they’re doing.
