Written by: Yasmin Zaidi, Team Leader
In Pakistan, the British Council works to develop the capacity and sustainability of nascent grassroots community-based organisations to reduce exploitation and address issues of social cohesion in communities, so that they have increased resilience to intolerance and local conflict. The programme works with civil society partners within 37 districts of two provinces to tackle sensitive issues, including child and forced marriages, gender-based violence, inequalities, and social exclusion of religious minorities, transgender people and people with disabilities. Aawaz II works to change the attitudes and behaviours of citizens towards women and minorities, increase levels of positive action from citizen-state engagement activities, develop civil society capacity for identifying and referring vulnerable people to sources of support, enhance capacity and facilitate community led mechanisms for conflict pre-emption.
Aawaz II has 26,340 active members in 1,500 community-based structures and over 17,000 trained youth change-agents in villages and neighbourhoods across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. These volunteers and change-agents design and deliver small scale collective and social action projects to address discriminatory practices. The programme involves a wide range of duty bearers at the local and district level and engages them through dialogue and advocacy initiatives. By working with the duty bearers, women, religious minorities, transgender persons, and persons with disabilities can effectively advocate for their rights. The programme has reached 35 million individuals through its successful radio and social media campaigns featuring behaviour change messages to complement the interpersonal community led efforts.
The greatest challenge has been designing and implementing a programme of this scale that will reach people in various areas with differing political views and social norms. The British Council achieves this by managing a network of 19 locally based partners to deliver on inclusive, community led results. In addition, the team works with difficult issues which are at the heart of these discriminatory norms and practises, such as child marriage, gender-based violence and intolerance. This requires extensive capacity building of local partners and communities in thematic areas, code of conduct and compliance, including do no harm, safeguarding and managing conflict of interest. Within the programme, we engage consistently with relevant government stakeholders, who recognise us as a trusted partner. By using a strategy of collaboration we are able to bridge the citizen-state divide and improve community access to services and duty bearers’ responsiveness and understanding of the multifaceted issues facing vulnerable groups. Aawaz is an enabling ecosystem that ensures inclusion and gender sensitivity, builds awareness and provides relevant information that helps the groups to tackle the issues within their communities, reach a solution and take action in ways that are effective and promote local ownership.
Child marriage is one such example of a social issue across Pakistan. It is a deeply rooted harmful social practice in the region and girls and boys are often wed at an early age, with little awareness on how this deprives them of their rights and opportunities. During a recent awareness-raising session at one of the community forums, a women named Dawi explained that as someone who belongs to a Hindu minority group, they do not have opportunities to learn and grow, but the Aawaz II volunteers have continuously helped them broaden their horizons and give them the confidence to make better choices. Until now, no one has ever told them that child marriage is not just illegal, but brutal for the children too. In this specific session, the team talked about the harmful effects of child marriage. Dawi, along with her husband, a local councillor and an Aawaz II village forum member, then went on to further engage with the community and educate them about their children's rights, and their responsibilities as parents. They had many heart-to-heart conversations with the Hindu community members. They openly explained that when children are wed at the age of 10 or 12 years, they are not ready emotionally and physiologically to handle the responsibilities of the roles of husband and wife. Dawi immediately inspired three parents to withdraw their decisions to wed their children at a young age. She encouraged them to provide better opportunities for the children and a right to education. The whole community has since started to change their norms and perspectives, and they now prioritise education and childhood over an early marriage for their children.
These initiatives create a ripple effect in the community. Faith leaders will then speak about it in their Friday sermons or the Sunday Church service. This allows for the whole community to learn and hear the message so that they can work on changing these norms. In several cases, the whole neighbourhood has come together and agreed not to let their children marry before the legal age. To date these efforts have led to 5,000 plus child marriages being averted, involving over 37,000 individuals. Similarly, over 15,000 cases of gender based violence have been addressed, benefitting 58,000 individuals.
Another example is Raj, who suffered a lifelong physical impairment in an accident over twelve years ago. Since the accident, he has been confined to the boundaries of his home and could not work to earn money and purchase a wheelchair. Raj was soon invited by an Aawaz II village forum member to attend the meetings, but he could not participate in these activities due to his disability. They also referred him to the normal institutions to apply for a wheelchair, but he did not receive a positive response.
The village forum members then collected data on persons with disabilities, including that of Raj. An Aawaz II village forum focal person highlighted this cause and discussed the need for the provision of wheelchairs. The forum members played a pivotal role in arranging wheelchairs, not only for Raj but for many other persons with disabilities in the district, by engaging support from a Relief Trust. Raj was soon invited to attend a small gathering, where 160 persons with disabilities, were presented with wheelchairs. It was a joyous moment for every person. Raj explained that:
‘After twelve long years, this was the first time I could move without any help. I am grateful to the Aawaz II forum members and staff for understanding the needs of a person who faces disability and immobility every day.’
The advocacy for the rights of persons with disabilities, especially women, has borne fruit, with provincial governments recognising the need for timely disbursement of grants and assistive devices, as well as ensuring a smooth and less cumbersome process to obtain a medical certificate that enables them to access these benefits.
Aawaz II focuses on inclusivity and collaboration by bringing diverse groups together and giving them the opportunity to find the best solution as opposed to a prescriptive approach. The programme’s success relies on its ability to encourage leaders to emerge from within who can then reach communities at a place where they can act. Often individuals in the same community or neighbourhood who belong to different faiths, did not engage with each other. Now they are sitting together at the Aawaz II community forums, listening to each other, understanding issues, and breaking the social barriers that kept them apart. Through such discussions and dialogues with opposing parties and duty bearers, Aawaz II communities have pre-empted local conflicts, impacting approximately 230,000 direct and potential beneficiaries.
Since its inception in 2020, the programme has witnessed change in Aawaz II communities, as trained individuals began emerging as community leaders and change-makers while continuously raising their voices to change behaviours and increase citizen-state engagement. They act as catalysts to promote change in the harmful practices of child, early and forced marriage, gender-based violence, exclusion, exploitation, and intolerance and have sowed the seeds of a shift towards positive social gender norms.