[COMMENTARY] Five Years of Inciting Nonprofit Stability

Posted on by

By Sara L.M. Davis

In November 2006, Chinese AIDS activist Li Dan sent me an email in New York. I had met this young Chinese PhD student turned AIDS activist once or twice, most recently at a dinner honoring him as a recipient of the Reebok Human Rights Award.

“We’re thinking of starting an AIDS law center in Beijing,” he wrote in his message. “Do you know anyone who might be interested?”

I did – in fact, I had just come home from having coffee with Jonathan Cohen of the Open Society Institute, who had mentioned an interest in funding an AIDS law project in China. That project launched both Li Dan’s Korekata AIDS Law Center and Asia Catalyst.

(more…)

[NEWS] Yirenping Center Reports on Disability Activism

Posted on by

Beijing grassroots group, Yirenping Center (益仁平中心), has had a busy January organizing anti-discrimination activities with local disability activists! They produced a short report with data about their activities, including links to Chinese media sources. Yirenping Center, established in 2006, is a public interest group that focuses on health and discrimination. Download their report here (PDF).

The views represented by Yirenping Center are not necessarily those of Asia Catalyst.

[UPDATE] October-December 2011

Posted on by

CELEBRATING OUR FIFTH ANNIVERSARY

In 2012, Asia
Catalyst is celebrating five years of partnering with grassroots groups in East
and Southeast Asia. In a challenging environment, this new generation of
leaders is developing innovative ways to meet the needs of marginalized
communities. Most of our partners are small start-up groups in Asia and as part
of our 5th Anniversary Campaign, we are asking for donations to help Chinese
health rights advocates to make their voices heard at the International AIDS
Conference in Washington D.C. this July. Please make a tax-deductible
contribution here.

(more…)

[NEWS] UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights Statement on Crisis of HIV Funding

Posted on by

Geneva, 30 January 2012 – The November 2011 announcement of the cancellation of the 11th round of funding of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria because of the Fund’s financial difficulties presents the international community with both a health and a human rights crisis.  Since its first round of funding in 2002, the Global Fund has played an indispensable role in advancing the health and human rights goals of the global HIV response.

The Global Fund’s financial difficulties are part of a broader global HIV funding crisis. This funding crisis is the most important human rights issue in the HIV response at this time. Paradoxically, funding is being flat-lined or reduced just as science, medicine and programmes are providing the tools for success against HIV.

(more…)

[RESOURCE] Managing Conflicts

Posted on by
By Mike Frick

In previous posts, we’ve described our approach to creating a strategic plan, writing a budget and managing volunteers – the three core skill areas covered by our nonprofit coaching programs in China. We believe that facilitating meetings is another essential skill for nonprofit groups, and that effective meeting facilitation requires solving conflicts in a fair, transparent and non-threatening manner.

Many of our partners in China describe their frustration attending meetings that too frequently devolve into off topic conversations, meandering discussions or sometimes even personal attacks. Given all of the time we spend in meetings, we’ve developed an approach that facilitators can use to keep meetings on track and defuse conflicts. We’ve divided these techniques into low, medium and high level “interventions” that start small and progressively build to more direct action depending on the seriousness of the situation. Starting with smaller, less-threatening interventions helps to build a sense of trust and safety for all involved; higher level interventions should only be used when other approaches have proved ineffective at solving the problem.

(more…)