THE CBO CATALYST
2015 CBO Catalyst participants
serve these communities in China:
Continuous impact
Implemented advocacy projects
Growing Advocacy and Impact
Community-based
advocacy by marginalized
groups is not just
possible—it is already
happening in richly varied and
often extremely effective ways
across Asia. Asia Catalyst
believes that community based
organizations (CBOs) are best
positioned to conduct their
own advocacy. They hav e a
unique understanding of the
circumstances in which they
work and the priority issues
of the communities they
represent.
Asia Catalyst’s seminal
program, the CBO Catalyst,
is a capacity building
program for CBO leaders
from marginalized groups
in Asia. The CBO Catalyst
As a part of the CBO Catalyst program, all participants
develop human rights advocacy plans to meet the
needs of their communities. The top three plans are
awarded Asia Catalyst sub-grants for implementation,
chosen by peer vote.
includes a fully integrated
training-of-trainer component,
entrenching knowledge, skills
and resources within the
communities served, enabling
community trainers to run their
own CBO Catalyst programs
for another cohort of leaders.
This year, a group of 8 CBO
leaders from China came
together for capacity building
workshops that merged
organizational management
skills with rights-based
advocacy. 2 additional
activists joined as trainers-intraining. Participants formed
lasting coalitions and are now
conducting strategic advocacy
on their communities’ priority
issues across China.
The three subgranted campaigns for 2015 aim to:
increase participation by the disabled community
in Gansu Province on policies and decision-making
directly affecting them; ensure access to postexposure prophylaxis for gay and bisexual men and
healthcare providers in Anhui Province; and improve
sex and gender education in middle schools in
Xi’an.
An Activist’s Perspective
Asia Catalyst photo,
CBO Catalyst workshop, April 2015
“We are pushing for social inclusion
for disabled people in China. Our work
includes two parts: mainstream society’s
acceptance of the disabled community and
the active integration of disabled people.
The disabled still face many challenges
in our daily lives. And, generally, disabled
people are reluctant to identify themselves.
Community participants this year include:
8
Chinese
CBOs
From 7
Provinces, including
traditionally underserved
areas like Xi’an
And 2
trainers-intraining, entrenching
Asia Catalyst’s program
deeper in the community
Take me as an example; I have a congenital
eyesight disability, which is incurable. I
have experienced many inconveniences.
While I was a student, there were no books
with large text or audio books in my school
in China. As far as I know, many other
countries do have these things. The needs
of people with vision disabilities were not
considered while making this electronic
screen or that landmark on the road. This
troubles me a lot. This, this social inclusion,
can only be achieved by more advocacy
activities. I know this training will go deep
into advocacy, which is great for us! ”
Continuous impact
Asia Catalyst photo,
CBO Catalyst workshop, April 2015
Groups that Asia Catalyst train go on to conduct
their own capacity building with members of their
communities and other peer organizations. This
happens informally, but also through Asia Catalyst’s
training of trainers program. In 2015, Asia Catalyst
supported a trained-trainer from the 2014 CBO
Catalyst program to run his own innovative version
of our yearlong training series, training a further
8 CBOs in organizational management and human
rights advocacy. This is the second Asia Catalyst
trained-trainer who has run and completed a capacity
building workshop series for other CBOs, using
skills, curriculum and methodology gained through
participation in Asia Catalyst programming.
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- Duan Hongbo, Gansu Province
Disabled Association Baiyin
Asia Catalyst photo,
CBO Catalyst workshop, April 2015
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