Background

The Womyn’s Agenda for Change - Speak-Out project is a program that seeks to facilitate development of the women’s movement across all sectors in Cambodian society, with a primary focus on women at the grassroots level. The Speak-Out project is implemented with the Women’s Network for Unity (WNU), focusing on community development and self-organisation among sex workers (direct and indirect SWs, Trans-genders, MSM and lesbians).

The WAC program’s core objective is to provide a grassroots Speak-Out process through which women can explore and analyse their feelings and insights, articulate their own aspirations as women, and feel able to initiate collective mutual support action.

The WAC program aims to provide an alternative to the current approaches by seeking to bring all women to the forefront of the empowerment process, rather than focusing only on developing the capacity of NGOs in Cambodia. The program envisages women speaking with their own voice in conferences and gatherings at all levels, rather than being solely represented by middle-class NGO workers. It prompts Cambodian NGOs to re-examine their current dominant role as direct service providers rather than empowering facilitators, and encourages NGO workers to be compassionate about gender on both a personal and organisational level.

To ensure a grassroots Speak-Out process in which all women can explore and analyse their feelings and insights, articulate their own aspirations as women, and feel able to initiate collective mutual support and action.

The Speak-out Project Target Area
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Program objectives also include:

• Broadening the understanding and ability of WNU members to analyse gender issues, by empowering women to negotiate and challenge top-down development initiatives and become active participants in the design and direction of programmes that involve them.
• Facilitating links between women on a grassroots level, to involve women and incorporate gender issues in their technical projects (e.g. credit, irrigation, agriculture), and in their respective organisations.
• Influencing national policy primarily through engagement with selected government Ministries, including the Cambodian Parliament and MOWVA (Ministry of Women’s and Veteran’s Affairs) whilst working within the existing gender and development networks.
• Documenting the speak-out process.
• Undertaking individual studies to enrich the understanding of gender issues in Cambodia.

Targets:

• Identification of women on a grassroots level to act as on-site animators and organisers, and assume the role of facilitators within their respective communities.
• Organisation of community level gender analysis and awareness sessions.
• Issue identification and facilitation, group action strategies made along with continued monitoring, implementation and evaluation of these plans.
• Improvement of the capacity of Women’s Network for Unity;
• HIV prevention staff to manage and monitor sex worker empowerment activities.
• Speak-Outs for International Women’s Day on 8 March and International Workers Day, 1st May, involving sex workers, garment workers and overseas SWs (APNSW and International SWs).
• Empowerment of Sex Workers to increase their control over their lives and futures.
• Encouragement of Sex Workers in target areas to adopt safer sex practices.
• Gaining the support and collaboration of local authorities and brothel owners in target areas in pursuing outreach HIV prevention activities.
• Increasing the use of STD care services by Sex Workers in target areas.
• Expand the knowledge and skills of the members of the Sex Worker committee based in Phnom Penh through basic administrative training at the WAC office e.g telephone training, report writing, in order for them to build capacities for running their own organisation.
• Two day training activity workshop with Sex Worker leaders, recruiting them to be part of a committee responsible for peer education
• Several meetings with Sex Worker leaders to discuss collective campaigning on relevant issues, such as free access to HIV medicine, the Tenofovir trial, or drug use.