COPASAH communication hub, is sharing the information on virtual forum with you on behalf of Walter Flores
Through the collaboration between COPASAH and GPSA, Walter Flores is facilitating a virtual forum entitled: “Engaging Marginalized Communities in the Process of Accountability in Health: Challenges and lessons learned”.
The description of the forum is as follows:
In many countries, socially excluded populations (due to ethnicity, race, gender, age, poverty, etc.) experience many barriers to access public services-including health care services. This occurs despite national and international legal frameworks that preclude discrimination and require the protection of vulnerable populations. Based on a human rights based approach, civil society organizations in different countries-members of COPASAH- have been developing processes and tools to engage marginalized communities in social accountability. This forum will share the challenges and lessons learned around three key issues:
- In social accountability work, the engagement between users and service providers is often taken for granted. When working with marginalized communities, the first major challenge is to facilitate the linking of communities that do not trust public services/government agencies and public workers that may not be interested in assisting groups that suffer social stigma. What are the specific barriers? What strategies have been effective to facilitate this engagement?
- Attempting to tackle marginalization inevitable means confronting oppressive and exploitative power relations. Conflict is therefore an inherent situation and it is expressed at different levels-from the frontline of health care delivery to national policy and decision-making. The challenge here is to transit from conflictive to a collaborative relation among different actors to tackle structural discrimination. What strategies and tactics have been implemented? What have worked?
- Social accountability can be an entry door for health care workers and communities working together to bring changes from the bottom. These changes will require social mobilization and political actions to connect with other reforms processes at provincial and national level. What strategies and tactics are being implemented? What seems to be working?
This forum is a good opportunity to present COPASAH members´ experiences and approaches to a much wider audience. Hence, we would encourage COPASAH members and COPASAH friends, to provide inputs and comments in the virtual forum.
To participate, visit here: http://gpsaknowledge.org/forums/topic/engaging-marginalized-communities-in-the-process-of-accountability-in-health-challenges-and-lessons-learned/