WOREC walking on her 30th year in Udayapur, has enormous ups and down while paving the path to social justice and equality. Undoubtedly, this will continue until she reaches the vision. Being a change agent, coordination is an essential task for WOREC. Coordination has been used as a tool for social change; developing campaigns, awareness sessions, advocacy, etc. which leads to collective social action. I was fortunate to meet a community volunteer of WOREC who shared her experience of coordination probably 18 years ago. It was motivating and insight for me as well as to all the front line workers. She shared – "despite limited access to communication tools like cell phones and vehicles they maintained strong coordination with community and authorities. Lack of resources and money never became the hindrance in our way of engaging with the community. Unity, dedication, and clarity on shared goals were the foundation of our strong coordination which resulted in the reporting of hundreds of cases of violence against women which were under the cover for many years. On one hand, our coordination encouraged the women to speak out and report the cases and other hand had made authority more responsible and sensitive towards the case of violence against women".
WOREC initiatives were never commenced separately. It was firmly associated with collective action and coordinated efforts. WOREC always believed that common goals of social justice and gender equality are only achieved through strong coordination. Over the decade WOREC established strong coordination with the community as well as with the local authority.WOREC concentrated its effort to unite the women and community people through various innovative approaches and initiatives. Likewise, With the strong coordination, WOREC involved ward and municipality (palika) people’s representatives, Police, different government and non-government service providers and like-minded networks and organizations in its all initiatives. Nevertheless, the community is always the front liner both in the part of coordination and intervention.
Due to its strong coordination, it has been able to link the concept and practices of WOREC with the local authority for sustainability and continuity.WOREC Was also able to integrate the regulation of safe houses, running the psychosocial counseling center, etc. in the plan of local government. Also, some of the palikas here are planning to pass the gender policy for the insurance of the legal framework for gender equality. Since long back initiated campaign-based activities of WOREC: information delivery against early marriage, rape, domestic violence, harmful social practices and establishment of a mechanism to report the cases of violence has been incorporated in the plans of local government which has become only possible after continuous coordination.
Those girls who used to be in the youth group of WOREC are now leading different organizations and institutions. Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and Women Empowerment Resource Centre (WERC) are some examples of it. Most of the deputy mayor or deputy chairpersons and ward members were directly or indirectly connected with WOREC campaigns. Now, this has become much easier to raise and sustain the issue-based campaign at the community level. WOREC comes in the first list in the case of VAW, providing safe house services, expertise for facilitation on human rights, gender equality, and social justice training and workshops. Also, its broad network beyond the district via branch and project offices and WHRDs has made easy access to province-level ministries and institutions.
In the nutshell, overall coordination with concerned stakeholders sounds enthusiastic. However, there are patriarchal structures shaped in both the mind and behavior of people engaged with different social, government and non-government institutions. Because of this, sometimes the issues of the human right of women are not digested, neither have they supported. Though it’s challenging to bind them in the single rope of social transformation, at the same time there is a huge opportunity to coordinate to lead the movement of social action for gender equality. The need of time is new technique has to be created to coordinate with local government to ensure for their effective intervention under the budget heading related to gender in partnership with WOREC.
WOREC has become the synonym to Women’s bodily integrity.
Ms. Sunita Mainali
The author is District Coordinator of WOREC in Udayapur district