In Mali, the Linking and Learning facilitators “Femmes et TIC” and the Web TV “Kunafoni” facilitated in October 2021 a festival dubbed “The Handi-Capable show: people with dis- abilities are capable!”. This festival created a platform to raise awareness on the abilities of people living with disabilities. We witnessed talents of all kinds carried by people living with all types of disabilities: people with albinism, hearing, visual and mental impairments and people with motor disabilities. The “Dana Amasagou” group of young people with hearing impairments won the first prize of 250 000 Fcfa. Their choreo- graphic performance dealt with several topical issues includ- ing violence, anger, rape, drugs, community conflicts, politics, in short, the current situation in Mali. Seeing young people who cannot hear, dance and perform to the sound of drums, was simply magical. “We can’t hear, but we feel vibrations from certain musical instruments such as the tam-tam, and it is from these vibrations that we can dance.” a member of the Dana Amasagou Group In Laos, the Linking Learning facilitator Laos, HuamJai Association, and its partner Phanthin facilitated an annual linking and learning event in December 2021. It was the first hybrid event in Laos, with some grantee partners participating physically while others joined online. They created a mutual learning platform to share learning questions or problems they want to solve together, success stories to learn from and mistakes that could be avoided. This hybrid event process has not been easy because it needed a significant amount of focus and patience. Online users may not be able to receive real-time responses or feel the atmosphere captured on camera, but this recent event has demonstrated that “we can do it,” “we are in this together,” and, for the most part, “ we are learning from it”. “We may not be able to meet in person today, but we are certainly connected powerfully online. Despite the physical distance, we were grateful to have connected virtually and that the health of everyone in the community is prioritized ”. Wendy Otieno, one of the Voice Linking, Learning and Amplifier Officers writes in her blog about the value of learning for effective grant-making: “the linking and learning approach allows rightsholders themselves to come up with solutions to some of the most pressing social justice issues. Simply put, this is a non-monetary type of support that goes beyond grant-making to enable collaboration, innovation, learning and … unlearning.” Finally, an innovative route to learning was explored by the grantee partners and rightsholders in the Philippines, under the guidance of YGOAL. When looking into ways to further the communities of practice in an online and valuable way, the grantee partners together defined a number of themes, of areas they wanted to explore and work around. So over the course of a couple of months, all those interested engaged around one of the topics and together cocreated solutions and new experiences that are documented in several ways.
At a glance
Marginalised groups, CSOs and other key stakeholders develop and implement innovative and effective strategies to reach, empower and strengthen influencing capacities of rightsholder groups 376 Organisations, informal groups and networks report the use and effects of new insights and innovative approaches
Festival Handi-Capable was unique and a first of its kind that celebrated persons with disability in the arts in Mali
Targeted Outcome 2
A Linking and Learning infrastructure is in place that visibly contributes to the insights, understanding and innovation ca- pacity of grantees and other stakeholders 68% of all grantees report use of the Linking and Learning infrastructure
Another great example is the collaboration between two organisations in the Philippines: the UP Babaylan, an LGBTI student organisation (an Empowerment grantee) and the Leonard Cheshire Disability Philippines Foundation, Inc. (LCDPFI), working exten- sively with people with disabilities and implementing an Influencing grant. During a Linking and Learning event, a session on disability sensitiveness by LCDPFI inspired members of UP Babaylan to increase sensitivi- ty in their own organisation and platform. They invited LCDPFI and other Disabled People’s Organisations, to give awareness-raising webinars and to co-create an inclusive infographics campaign. They became aware of the intersectionality of their struggles. The deeper mutual understanding led to a joint Infographics on Mental Health during the COVID-19 pandemic. The country level NOW-Us! or NOW-Nous! Awards inviting ten preselected nominees to a bootcamp, was another space for getting new insights and directly innovating the original ideas to richer and more effective project ideas. The bootcamp itself became a space for reflection, such as in Cambodia. Also, in Mali the focus in the bootcamp was to further develop and improve the nominees’ innovative advocacy ideas. As one of the participants from Mali mentioned in the 2022 NOW-Nous! inception meeting: all ten innovative ideas worked on in the Bootcamp became so good that it was a very hard task for the jury to select only three winners.
target 150 Global cumulative target 2021-2024
Target 70% Global cumulative target 2021-2024
In Tanzania, Empowerment grantee partner Deaf’s Sustenance and Development Organisation (DSDO) has adopted agro-ecosystem model in Njombe region and managed to lobby free access to agricultural land for People with Disabilities (PWDs). Three groups of ten PWDs each were created, thus, 30 PWDs engaged. The creation of these groups was in line with the government requirement to access development loans as well as land for agricultural activities. It was also an initiative to promote collective action by the rightsholders for their own economic empowerment. In addition, DSDO managed to establish one agro-in- put facility out of two aimed at supplying avocado seedlings. The three groups formed links with the local government authority in Njombe to receive interest free loans for the engagement in agriculture activities.
In 2021, Voice grantee partners across the ten countries par- ticipated in various linking and learning efforts (as detailed in the table above). Among grantees 15 new Communities of Practice (CoPs) were created offering opportunities for shar- ing and learning around grantee chosen topics, while some older CoPs are going strong and show growing participation of other stakeholders albeit slowly. It can be assumed that all grantees onboarded in 2021, participated in at least one inception Linking and Learning initiative throughout the year.
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