Taldykorgan hosted community advocate workshop for CSOs of Kyzylorda and Almaty oblasts

During 16-18 September 2015, Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia (EFCA) conducted a three-day workshop on community advocacy with financial support from the British Embassy in Kazakhstan within the framework of the program “Empowering South Kazakhstan CSOs to Promote Human Rights Reforms” supported by the European Union Delegation to Kazakhstan.

The workshop is aimed to improve technical capacity of CSO network to provide community advocacy to local beneficiaries, as well as the necessary tools and practical data collection methods to document and compile research in order to inform human rights stakeholders at the local, regional, and national levels.

20 directors and program coordinators representing Kyzylorda and Almaty CSOs participated in the workshop. The workshop was conducted by Viktor Ten, Director of co-applicant organization “Taldykorgan Human Rights Center”. 

The workshop covered the following topics: data collection methods used for population’s problem assessment; data collection by the means of official requests and clarifications from the state institutions; analysis of existing national legislation on human rights, compliance of national legislation with international standards of human rights with the consideration of this problem; structuring of all received data; advocacy campaign.

Within three days the workshop participants obtained knowledge on analysis of vulnerable groups’ problems and detection of concrete goals to improve their status, which will increase professional level of local CSOs in matters of advocacy-campaigns of their focus groups.

Bakytgul Elchibaeva, the head of the Local Communities Foundation of Yenbekshikazakh District, highlights: “The advocate workshop allowed me to obtain new knowledge and skills to conduct an advocacy campaign and to write a project proposal on protection of rights and interests of vulnerable groups”. 

Aysulu Sailybayeva, the project coordinator of Public Association of Disabled “Qamqor” says: “The advocate workshop gave me an opportunity to define the core of problems basing on the provision of evidential arguments, and now I know how to resolve these problems using advocacy on local and regional levels”.