Khwendo Kor profile

8/7/2019 Khwendo Kor profile

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KK- Rights for All; Empowered communities, especially women and children; A just andequitable society.

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Organizational Background and Rationale

Khwendo Kor (KK) is a Pashto language word means Sisters Home. It is a non-profit, non-

partisan organization registered in 1993 under the societies Act 1860. It was set up in response to

an urgent need expressed by women for a forum to address their issues; it has developed into asisterhood, guiding women to take practical steps for the betterment of themselves and their

families. It is a participatory development initiative, focusing on the active involvement of the

communities especially women and Children. KK works in villages of Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa(KPK) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) where health, education and income

generation facilities are either non-existent or dysfunctional and the poor are marginalized.

Purpose

Rights for All; Empowered communities, especially women and children; a just and equitable

society.

Our Vision

We aspire to sustain and strengthen Khwendo Kor to empower vulnerable Communities,

especially women and children, to effectively demand their rights and contribute to a just andequitable society.

Values

Participation

Mutual respect

Gender Sensitivity

Honesty & Integrity

Impartiality

Transparency

Accountability

Geographical Coverage

Till 2005, apart from Peshawar Head Office, KK worked fromonly two regional offices, Dir and Karak. In 2006-07, as a

result of KKs emergency response to the October, 2005

earthquake, a new regional office was opened in Abbottabad. Now KK is managing eight regional and project offices

(Peshawar, Mansehra, Karak, D.I. Khan, Upper Dir, LowerDir, Bannu, Tannk) besides a Head office in Peshawar and aLiaison Office in Islamabad.

KK has an international partner organization, UK Friends of

Khwendo Kor (FROK) which was established in 2001 and is

registered in UK as a charity. FROK volunteers assist KK invarious activities including consultancy, fundraising and help

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KK Office Network

Head Office

Peshawar

Liaison OfficeIslamabad

Regional Offices

Peshawar,Karak, Mansehra,

D.I. Khan,Lower Dir

Project Offices

Upper Dir, Tank, Bannu

UKFriends of KK-


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in establishing strategic contacts. Recently KK has also initiated the concept of Friends of

Pakistan.Following is the KK geographic coverage:

S # Administrative Unit Activities in the area are managed from following

KK officesSettled Districts

1 Peshawar Regional Office Peshawar

2 Mardan Regional Office Peshawar

3 Karak Regional Office Karak

4 DIR-Lower Regional OfficeDir Lower

5 DIR-Upper Project Office Dir Upper

6 Bannu Project Office Bannu

7 DI Khan Regional Office DI Khan

8 Tank Project Office Tank

9 Manshera Regional Office Mansehra

Tribal areas

10 FR Peshawar Regional Office Peshawar

11 FR Bannu Regional Office Bannu

12 Bajour Agency Regional Office Dir Lower

13 Khyber Agency Regional Office Peshawar

Thematic Coverage

Khwendo Kor is working on the following thematic areas to achieve its aims:

Community led Social Services (Education, Health)

Aim: Vulnerable communities especially women and children are empowered to successfullyclaim their Health and education rights.

Good Governance

Aim: Vulnerable communities especially women and children are empowered to play an

effective role in improving local, provincial and national governance.

Sustainable Livelihoods (Micro Enterprise, Natural Resource Management, Adult

Literacy Program)

Aim: Vulnerable communities especially women and children are capacitated to contributein family sustainable livelihoods

Relief & Rehabilitation

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Aims: Provide effective and efficient response to man-made and natural disaster is ensured at

all levels.

Organizational Strengthening

Aims: To strengthen and improve KKs governance, managerial and organizational capacity

to effectively pursue its purpose and vision on a sustainable basis.

Cross-cutting theme

Human Rights, social organization, advocacy, partnership development, gender, peace, poverty

reduction and environment are cross cutting themes.

KK Achievements

Good Governance

KK being awared of the fact that good governance is pivotal to the development process, and the

area where KK is working in the backward areas which suffer from bad governance. Hence

capacity building, awareness and empowerment of communities and government office holdersin these backward areas are inevitable for any sort of development.

Community Organizations: KK has always looked for agreement and enthusiasm in the

communities which has been the key to ensuring positive outcomes. KK has set up over 300

village womens, mens and mixed gender organizations and encouraged them in their owndevelopment initiatives; for example, Village Education Committees supervise school

management and ensure standards in remote target districts. KK has worked with many partners

including stakeholders, government line departments and local activists and hence strengthenedand educated communities which in turn provide strong support to KK.

Advocacy: KK has chosen a path of negotiation and advocacy. This requires a long-term view

and has led KK to form consortiums, networks and forums with local, national and internationaldevelopment partners to raise a voice for change at policy level. At present, KK is a member of

the Pakistan National Committee (PNC), the Provincial Education Network (PEN), Beijing +10,

Violence Against Women (VAW), the Joint Action Committee (JAC), Gender Voices, the

Advocacy & Development Network (ADN), the Micro Summit International Network forAlternative Financial Institutions (INAFI), the Asian South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education

(ASPBAE), the Pakistan National Forum (PNF), the Pakistan Coalition for Quality Education,

and Aman Tehreek (a peace movement).Improving local, provincial and national governance: As a right based organization, KK has

worked for the protection and promotion of women and childrens rights. It has used its basic

education, health, and livelihood activities in order to engage communities and increase theirawareness in this area. It has also encouraged them to take ownership of their rights and act

together and with government to achieve favorable structural changes. Public dialogues,

reflection action circles and interactive theatres have been held. More than 25,000 people havebeen benefited from KKs education, awareness and capacity building programs in the human

rights sector. KK has been a staunch advocate against the use of corporal punishment in schools.

Besides its own education program, it has provided education in childrens rights to more than

2,000 children in government schools and centersPeace and Conflict resolution: KK has established Khwendo Kor area Coordination Committee

(KACC) in all its working districts consisting of professionals, educationists, government and

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civil society to effectively contribute to KK cause and support, resolve conflicts and help in

implementation of Projects/Programs at KK working districts. Now networking is also one of theimportant role committee is performing.

KK has organized and strengthen youth of FR Bannu to effectively contribute in peace and

establish good governance in the area. These groups have squashed into local organizations

which are supposed to take lead in continuation of development work after project period.KK is also sensitizing community and government stakeholders about the impact of conflicts on

women, GBV, UN Security Councils Resolution, capacitate civil society and government

institutions to protect, support and promote womens participation in peace and non-violenceinitiatives at the local, district and provincial level and is also providing protection and relief to

victims of GBV and internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Women Empowerment: Since its establishment in 1993, KK has substantially contributedtowards women empowerment at the grass root level. To empower them in the socio-political

and economic fields, KK has supported more than four thousand women in obtaining their

National Identity Cards and registering as voters. KK set a precedent in achieving womensactive participation in the political process during the Local Body Elections in Districts Karak

and Dir, when women contestants came forward and seven women won. In collaboration withanother partner organization, KK strengthened local bodies and Jirga functionaries to form

Masalihati Anjuman, which aims to resolve family disputes at the Union Council level.

Community led Social Services

Khwendo Kor while working at grass root level has always tried to build the human resources at

community level. For this purpose KK invest in people through directly providing health and

educational facilities to the communities.

Health: KK has been actively involved in providing basic health services to marginalized

communities. It has trained and employed more than thousand local women as Traditional Birth

Attendants (TBAs), who have delivered thousands of babies safely and referred thousands ofother, more difficult, cases in time for lives to be saved. The TBAs also conducted basic hygiene

and health practices session to their communities, while KKs wider health awareness sessions

have been attended by over 16,000 individuals. Working with the government, KK has been inthe forefront in helping to deliver 48 vaccinations and has run 113 medical camps in remote

areas of the NWFP and FATA. These are communities where cultural and social taboos limit

access for Government and other NGOs, but deep-rooted trust in KK has made it possible for

them to work.Education: Besides providing educational opportunities to children and women in all of its

working areas through schools (for children), adult literacy centres and vocational centres, KK is

also supporting the government to improve the literacy rate in the country via rehabilitating the

damaged and demolished government schools in the terrorist hit areas of Dir and Swat.

Sustainable Livelihoods

(Micro Enterprise, Natural Resource Management, Adult Literacy Program)In 1994, KK started an enterprise development scheme to enable women to gain some measure

of financial independence. Micro-credit, training and technical support in animal husbandry,

street vending, village shops and vegetable production were provided. The average income ofKKs women entrepreneurs rose from Rs.1500-2000 per month in 2006-07 to Rs. 2500-3000 in

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Project name Donor Themes Covered District

1 Integrated

Development

programme

Oxfam Novib Community led Social Services

(Education & Health)

Good governance

Sustainable Livelihood

Peshawar

Karak

DIR-Lower

2 Girls education

project

Development in

Literacy DIL Community led Social Services

(Education) DIR-Lower

3 Relief andRehabilitation of

IDPs

UNICEF Relief & Rehabilitation

(NFI, Disaster Preparedness and ChildProtection Centers)

DI Khan

Tank

4 Free and fair election network

FAFEN

The AsiaFoundation

Good governance

(Constituencies relations and

formations, Civic and political

awareness)

Peshawar

DI Khan

5 Voice for Right

(Awaz I Haq)

National

Endowment forDemocracy

NED

Good Governance (Civic and

political awareness, communityorganizations)

Karak

DI Khan

6 Girls back to

school

UNOPS Community led Social Services (Roll

back girls to their schools) DIR-Lower

7 Striving for Gender Justice

through Collective

Community Actionin Khyber

Pukhtoonkhwa

NorwegianChurch Aid

NCA

Good governance(Community mobilization reg. forced

marriages and inheritance laws, referral

and establishing community centres)

Manshera

8 SustainableLivelihood

J A Clark Community led Social Services

Sustainable Livelihood

(Provision of literacy and Skills through

centres)

Peshawar

Karak

9 Health

development

PPA Community led Social Services

(Health) (medical camps, reconstructionand community organization)

DIR-Upper

10 Education

development Community led Social Services

(Education) (literacy centres,reconstruction and community

organization)

DIR-Upper

11 Development of

Wizeristan

Action Aid Community led Social Services

(Education and Health) FR Bannu

12 Flood Relief and

rehabilitation

Services

Foundation

Open Society

Institute

Pakistan(FOSI)

Relief and Rehabilitation DIK

Tank

Peshawar

Upper Dir

Lower Dir

FR Bannu

13 Literacy a Tool for

social

Empowerment

UNISCO Community led Social Services

(Education through 10 LiteracyCentres)

FR

Peshawar

KhyberAgency

Karak

14 Relief activities Canadian

international

DevelopmentAgency

Relief and rehabilitation FR Bannu


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Khwendo Kor profile