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chapter three
Reflections on our work What we have learned about the key ingredients for impact Lesson learned Simavi ended four major programmes in 2020: Get Up Speak Out, Golden Line, Marriage: No Child’s Play from the More Than Brides Alliance, and Watershed. Closing programmes is always bittersweet: we step back to see the impact of our work, but it also means the end of partnerships and teams we have invested in for a number of years.
3 cross-cutting lessons learned
1. Understanding and reiterating our added value in larger consortia. Simavi is not always the largest organisation in the consortia it takes part in. If we work with larger and/or international organisations our work can be overshadowed. It helps to clearly position ourselves in consortia like these, to define what our strengths are and how we can better communicate that to our partners and the world at large. 2. Redoubling our efforts on working with a women-centred approach. Through our women-centred approach we have the ambition to involve women in every aspect of the programme. As a result, we see that when women are empowered to make a change this has a large impact on the community as a whole. This is something that we not only believe in, but we have seen this approach work in various programmes and contexts. 3. Bringing in locally-led civil society organisations from the start. The learnings from the different programmes have led us to conclude that locally-led civil society partners need to be brought in earlier. They need to be part of programme development and build relationships with the donors – and not just be implementers. We need to stop being intermediaries between donors and the local organisations.
Programme: Marriage: No Child’s Play (MNCP) Countries: Malawi, India (Pakistan, Niger and Mali) Partners: Save the Children Netherlands, Oxfam Novib, Population Council, GENET, YONECO, VHAI, NEEDS, CINI, BVHA
PUTTING WOMEN IN THE CENTRE Marriage: No Childs’s Play focused on ensuring that young people are able to decide if and when to marry, and to pursue their sexual and reproductive health and rights in an environment that is supportive of girls’ choices, initiative and empowerment. The learnings from this programme informed our decision to redouble our efforts to work with a women-centred approach. Putting girls at the centre of the programme – by empowering them, giving them a platform from which to speak out and putting them in the driving seat when decisions are made that affect their lives – made a visible difference. The programme was designed around girls. Simavi and partners trained 29,535 girls on topics around sexual and reproductive health and rights, child marriage, communication and leadership skills. Girls’ groups were formed to create safe spaces to learn, share and practise their newly acquired skills. The girls were provided with a platform where they could voice their needs and priorities. They let their voices be heard by submitting a charter of demands to government officials and through campaigns, rallies and creative programmes. They were actively involved in different social structures, such as school management committees, village health committees, child protection committees and student governments, and as such were often themselves the drivers of change in the social processes in their lives. Sanji Marandi, peer educator, Jharkhand, India: “I can now talk in a room of a hundred people, if needed. I could never have imagined that before.” Learn more about the programme and all of its results at: https://morethanbrides.org/
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Simavi Impact Report 2021
