Share-Net attends EuroNGOs 2018
Posted by Maria on November 21, 2018 at 1:24 pm
On the 6-7th of November 2018, representatives of Share-Net International and Share-Net Netherlands attended the EuroNGOs 2018 Conference in Ghent, Belgium. Building on last year’s conference, the purpose of this year gathering was to connect with human rights groups and movements to share lessons learnt and to act with hope during changing times.
During the annual general meeting, EuroNGOs announced they have gone through a rebranding process and will continue under the name of ‘Inspire – European Partnership for Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights.’
Key Take-aways
- Break out of our silos and connect with other (human rights) movements and focus on building longer-term relationships. There are opportunities to link up, to have conversations and to strengthen collaboration while moving forward.
- Spend more time investing in dialogues and create safe spaces for conversations.
- Keep being bold about achieving change when it comes to the post 2019 SRHR agenda. International advocacy on global issues, like CSE remains important and should include positive messages about sex and sexuality.
- Work both at national country level and together with other European partner countries.
- To reach young people, move away from traditional SRHR fora and move towards more popular general fora like Vice and link up with other movements where youth can be reached.
- Engage young people more and give them greater visibility. We should invest in building their skills and capacity and enable them to have a voice. More funds for youth projects and youth-led organisations need to be secured.
- More research/mapping is needed on the discriminatory practices that women and girls experience so that we can show the prevalence of this problem and advocate on the basis of facts. However, there is also already a lot of data out there which we should identify and use effectively.
- Be careful how we frame data. Data cannot speak for itself and this is where the danger lies. There should be an open dialogue with those creating data.
- Advocate for change with a strong voice from civil society. We can achieve more when we speak with one voice and have solidarity at its core.
- Nobody should be left behind, especially vulnerable key populations. Make sure that spaces and opportunity are accessible and everybody benefits.
An official report of the conference will be send out soon by the conference organisers. We disseminate this report in a next Share-Net Netherlands newsletter.
