Cooperative projects

Philippines: South-South solidarity work and local conflict mediation

The Philippine NGO Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) (www.iidnet.org) from Davao City in the South of the country has been involved with solidarity work in Asia since 1994. At first the focus was mainly on the struggle for self-determination of the people of East Timor, an issue IID succesfully highlighted throughout Southeast Asia by putting on conferences and sponsoring other activities. In recent years, the organization increasingly turned its attention toward the democracy movement in Burma. At the same time, IID supports local peace efforts in its home area of Mindanao, where social conflicts have escalated into a civil war between Muslim guerillas and the predominantly Christian military and a number of militias and armed groups. IID co-founded the network Bantay Ceasefire which organizes peace observers at the village level. These observers immediately inform a network of civil society groups if a violent incident threatens the peace. The goal is to avoid a military escalation by involving peace brokers immediately and putting pressure on the commanders of all forces to act with restraint.

The Asia working group has been supporting IID since 2006 with an annual block grant of up to € 15,000. This allows IID to independently support projects related to solidarity work in Asia, the promotion of peace and conflict resolution in the Southern Philippines as well as local development work according to the criteria of Umverteilen!.

India: strengthening rural communities at the village level

The organization Centre for World Solidarity (CWS) (www.cwsy.org) in the Indian city of Secunderabad (Andhra Pradesh) has been supporting and consulting rural communities at the village level in especially poor regions of India since 1992. Its focus is on the promotion of women.

Since CWS has a deeper understanding of current problems in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar — more than we could ever gain from abroad — and in order to strengthen the organizational responsibility of a partner like CWS, we leave it to CWS to choose its project partners at the local level according to mutually agreed guidelines. Up to now CWS primarily has supports activities in the following areas:

• women′s rights and legal aid
• reproductive health and prevention programs
• income generation for women
• education of women and girls
• environmental protection

The Asia working group has been supporting CWS since 1997. Since 2006, the funding CWS receives from us has been gradually decreased to currently € 8,000 a year. Despite its success, our cooperation will end in 2010 in order to avoid creating dependencies.