Quarterly Newsletter: Reflections on Strategic Planning

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Dear Friends,

 

As I approach my first anniversary on the job and as we move into the lunar New Year (and Spring here in New York), it feels like a time for reflection and renewal. One of the highlights of this past quarter was the opportunity to meet up with all the AC staff from our Beijing and Bangkok offices – it’s a rare opportunity when we can all be together – to engage in our strategic planning process. The six-day process was both painful (considering the political climates in which we work) and exhilarating, given how smart, dedicated, and lovely is each of our staff members. The team worked to review and revise the organization’s mission and vision, develop a two-year plan, and develop an organizational “Theory of Change” to reflect our actual and aspirational work.

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Call for Applications: CBOs

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Call for Applications (English Round)

Asia Catalyst is now accepting applications from community based organizations (CBOs) in Myanmar that wish to develop advocacy strategies and implement community-led activities to address challenges that people living with HIV (PLHIV) and key populations face in realizing their human rights.

Background:

Asia Catalyst builds strong civil society to advance the rights of marginalized groups. We are driven by the voice of communities. We partner with and train leaders of community based groups to run effective and inclusive organizations, and to conduct rigorous human rights research and advocacy.

As part of this work in 2015-2016, Asia Catalyst worked with CBOs in Cambodia, China, Myanmar and Viet Nam to document discrimination faced by people living with HIV and key populations in accessing health services. The results were synthesized in this report, and research findings and stakeholder recommendations for each country were summarized in country-specific policy briefs. This year Asia Catalyst would like to build on this work to advance the advocacy issues identified in the Myanmar Brief.

About the opportunity, and the application process:

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Heading into the Year of the Rooster

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Dear Friends,

Around the world, Asia Catalyst and our grassroots partners are adjusting to new political realities and legal challenges, and taking creative steps to ensure that civil society groups are not undermined. As we celebrate Chinese New Year and embark on the Year of the Rooster, we are working around the clock to ensure a seamless flow of support to our partners on the ground.

Below are some of our recent accomplishments.

  • In China, we worked closely with local groups to organize “town hall” consultations with diverse transgender groups and individuals from around the country. This process feeds into the development of a unique training curriculum, based on lived experience, to build leadership and increase advocacy capacity on trans rights issues.
  • In Bangkok, we brought together 13 graduates of our CBO Catalyst in-depth training cohort to an Action Assembly to promote coalition building and strengthen human rights advocacy capacity. Seventy-seven community advocates participated on our bi-monthly call on sexuality education. See a summary of that webinar, below.

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Quarterly Newsletter August – October 2016

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Dear friends,

Greetings from Yangon! Our capacity building and advocacy work has been “full steam ahead” over these past three months, and I’m excited to share highlights of our progress.

Building on our community-led research project on discrimination in healthcare settings in Cambodia, China, Myanmar, and Vietnam, we held advocacy follow-up workshops with local groups and key stakeholders in Cambodia and Myanmar. In China, we conducted organizational management and advocacy coaching and training workshops for a wide range of advocates working on LGBT, youth, disability, and HIV issues. We organized efforts to address the problem of law enforcement practices undermining public health goals, and released our report on police use of “condoms as evidence” of prostitution in China, based on testimony from 517 female, male, and transgender sex workers in 3 major cities. We will bring together Chinese and Vietnamese sex worker advocates, scholars, and lawyers to discuss strategies to abolish the custody and education system, learning from real-world success stories to close unlawful, ineffective detention centers.

In July, Asia Catalyst sent Gareth Durrant, Director of Partnerships and Programs, to the International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Durban, South Africa. In the blog post below, Gareth explains Asia Catalyst’s historical involvement in the conference, offers personal highlights and reflections from his trip, and gives us a glimpse into what Asia Catalyst is hoping to bring to IAC in 2018.
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We’re Hiring!

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We’re hiring! Asia Catalyst is seeking excellent applicants for three positions with our Asia team. Current openings are for a Contract Trainer, an M&E Consultant and a Research Assistant. Check out our careers page for full details. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until October 10th 2016. https://asiacatalyst.org/who-we-are-2/careers/