FNF and ERA Consumer work on the Community Centres

The Friedrich Naumann Foundation and ERA Consumer Malaysia are receiving funds from the European Union.
It suports a project for the empowerment of Indian women in Malaysia to express and defend their rights and gain
greater self-esteem and control over their own lives and personal and social relationships.

The project also seeks:

Indian men’s participation in the activities of the Community Centres.
Involvement of families and the community as a whole
Involvement of Malays, Chinese, and other members of the local community.
Support of the national dialogue about improving legislative provisions on women’s rights in Malaysia.
Initial Community Consultation Sessions

The initial Community Consultation sessions took place in the five short listed locations on the following dates:

18th September 2003 - Slim River
5th October 2003 - Dengkil
8th October 2003 - Kapar
12th October 2003 - Rimba Jaya
18th October 2003 - Ampang

All in all, the sessions took place in a lively atmosphere, providing the attendees ample opportunities to participate
activity and provide valuable input.

The main objectives of the sessions were to:

inform the target group about the project, objectives of the project, and activity categories.
Prioritize the additional activity categories that are available, and suggest new activity categories as well as activities.
Gather basic information and data on the target group.
Fine out the preferences regarding the frequency, location, and general conduct of the activities.
Half-yearly Evaluation The first six months

The half-yearly evaluation meeting took place on the 31st of October 2003, marking stocktaking of the first six months. The session began with a presentation by Ms. Manohary, who gave a brief introductory presentation on the Indian Community in Malaysia including statistics relevant to the Indian Community. The presentation then covered all the relevant events related to the Project in a chronological order, grouped according to the Community Centres.

A brief overview of the events and activities to follow was also presented. The manner of conduct of Community Consultation Sessions was eleaborated. This was followed by a presentation from Mr. Rainer Heufers, FNF Project Director for Malaysia, who reemphasized the objectives of the Community Centres, and the fact that the activities should strengthen the self-help capacities of the Indian community. The next topic of discussion was the communication between ERA and FNF, and the ways and means of further enhancing the communication. This was followed by an outlook on the future activities both long term and short term via-á-vis the objectives of the project. In retrospective, this was a very effective meeting, with an honest and constructiv appraisal of the work done till now, the shortcomings, and solutions proposed to overcome these shortcomings, as well as a very detailed overview of the outlook and future steps.

Next Steps

Initial staf training for the Community Centre staff.
Official launch of the first five Community Centre.
Preparation for the survey for selection of th next five Community Centres.
Selection of locations for setting up the next five Community Centres

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