Lessons and questions

for ecumenical women

doing advocacy
Ecumenical Women Church Leaders Initiative
Consultation
Geneva-Switzerland
May 18-20, 2022
Gracia Violeta Ross
Programme Executive for Ecumenical HIV/AIDS Initiatives &Advocacy (EHAIA), WCC
Ross.Gracia@wcc-coe.org
 The space of advocacy

 Multidisciplinary space
 Different stakeholders
 A space to negotiate power
 We speak, analyze, propose etc. until we reach the desirable
change (examples, create or remove a law, start a new support
program for widows, introduce a line for funding)

 How and why we want that space? What is our cause? Can that also
be our calling?
 Just because we are women or faith leaders do we have a seat in
that table?
 How do other actors see us?
Advocacy, a tool
 The means to an end, not the end itself.
 Theological basis but avoid the over spiritualization of issues.
 We have to acknowledge that issues can be so “territorial” and that
other actors have something to do and to say. No issue can be
solved by a single stakeholder.

 With what philosophical basis do we relate with others?

 Use the Ethics approach when you are with peers, doing
accompaniment, providing support, or asuming maybe
representation roles if the community give us that authority.

 Use the Political approach when you relate to other actors with
more power than we have, for example the Ministry of Health, the
leadership of the church, the leadership pf a company, etc.

The outcomes of advocacy might be visible after a

long time
The vulnerability issue

 No one owns the vulnerability, we are all vulnerable

 Some people have multiple layers of vulnerability
 We name the vunerability but we should not asign that
identity in people
 Avoid the temptation of being «the savior» of “the
victims”
 Be aware of our own powers, avoid patronizing
approaches
 Trust communities, they know what they need
 We should only facilitate the organization and amplify
their voices
The advocacy plan

 Dynamic

Analyze-propose strategies-
implement-REPEAT

 Some situations might force us to update the plan inmediately (for

example the Ministry of Health declared in the news the cut of
funding for HIV)

 Some messages need to be spoken in a given moment, otherwise

they are no longer valid (for example, a person living with HIV has
been denied the right to gwt marry in a local congregation)
Examples of advocacy in HIV
needed in the faith sector
 HIV stigma in local congregations

 Human rights of gay men or sex workers

 Promotion of HIV information and testing in the congregation

 Sustainable funding for HIV prevention and care (this one will
always happen with other stakeholders)

 Care for children living with or affected by HIV

 Food support for people living with HIV