Key Role in the National Partnership Forum:

To highlight theimportance of active citizens and volunteerism in Pakistan, VSO and Britishcouncil have launched for the first time a Partnership Forum (a network of keypartners and stakeholders). Anwar JannatMemorial Foundation has been playing a very active part to make this happenand thus Mr. Asad has been given the lead role to supervise the component ofCapacity building/Training which is one of three key areas identified by theforum. The first meeting of the forum was convened in Islamabad at VSO officethat was attended by more than 16 partner organizations of VSO and BritishCouncil.

Expectationsfrom the forum:

Participants discussedin a large group their expectations from the forum. As this was the first timeall partners were getting together under the forum’s objectives, they sharedthat the expectations were of different sorts and clarity is required toestablish forum’s key roles. Some participants shared that from theirexpectations they would be able to formulate forum’s role and focusedobjectives.

Participants discussedin a large group their expectations from the forum. As this was the first timeall partners were getting together under the forum’s objectives, they sharedthat the expectations were of different sorts and clarity is required toestablish forum’s key roles. Some participants shared that from their expectationsthey would be able to formulate forum’s role and focused objectives.

Forum’skey interventions:

Participants went intogroups and discussed three key areas they thought the forum should take on. Thefollowing suggestions were discussed in large group:

-      CapacityBuilding of forum partners on volunteer management systems

-      Capacitybuilding for volunteers, especially young people

-      Awarenessraising through media

-      Communityengagement through promoting voluntarism and active citizenship

-      Networkingwith other organizations, government bodies and INGOs for strengthening theforum’s role and increasing the extent of influence

-      Advocatingpolicy level discussions

-      Influencingpolicy makers and decision making bodies through effective lobbying andadvocacy strategy

-      Researchon voluntarism and active citizenship issues in the country

-      Resourcemobilization

-      Developingsustainable volunteer management systems

-      Publicityof partners’ work and forum

-      Formationof guidelines

-      Sustainabilityof NV model

Participants suggestedthat the above mentioned proposed interventions can be classified into threebroad areas and each key area shall be supervised by a working group whichwere:

1. Capacity Building/Training
2. Networking/Linkages
3. Advocacy/Awareness