Page 1 of 8
Meghan Davidson Ladly is a student at Toronto, Canada and had to select a NGO of her choice to analise and study. To explain it best, follows a quote from one of the ealier corrospondance between her and CEO, Liesl Theron.
"For my project I am supposed to pick an activist organization and then study and analyze their activism and produce a final report. It is a very unique course in the sense that we are actually attempting to learn how to be effective activists. Anyway, if Gender DynamiX does engage in activism as well as service provision I would really love to do my project on it, as I do have particular interest in GLBTTQ issues on the African continent and Gender DynamiX seems like such a unique organization. I would consider it a privilege to be able to study Gender DynamiX and would really love to be able to spread awareness for such an inspiring organization."
Transgender Advocacy
Advocacy is the art and skill of trying to effect change. Advocacy can take many forms, for example individual advocates may work alone on a cause or, more commonly, advocates may work together forming advocacy organizations. These organizations, which can emerge at the local, national, and international level, allow individuals to come together and jointly advocate a common position, and offer the potential to network with other groups who are advocating the same, or a related, position.
Advocacy generally involves applying pressure on some level of government or industry that is not immediately inclined to view an issue from the perspective of those advocating. Often there will be multiple groups targeting the same institution or individual(s) yet wanting different results. Advocacy is difficult and can be daunting, and yet the numbers of organizations and networks across the globe continue to grow. Some advocacy organizations are, however, more successful than others. Certain groups grow and achieve international status and influence, while others lose momentum and fade away without achieving substantive change, and then there all the organizations who fall somewhere between these two extremes.
The question behind these different models of the direction a group can take is what makes an advocacy organization successful? The more interesting related question is: how do you measure the success of an advocacy organization, in particular when it occupies the grey area, as many groups do, between one that is obviously a success or a failure. It is this overarching question that this paper will address. This paper will examine one advocacy organization and analyze its strategies and tactics with an ultimate assessment of its successes and failures and related recommendations. The organization that this paper will focus on is Gender DynamiX. Gender DynamiX is a transgender rights organization based in South Africa that is trying to effect change within that country, but that also eventually aspires to operate throughout the continent.
Users' Comments (2) 
|
|
|
