LSO Initiatives – Sindh Rural Support Organzation

Local Support Organizations Initiatives (LSO)

With an aim of empowering the marginalized people (especially women), SRSO pioneered organizing women rural communities into the folds three tiers Social Mobilization structure of Mahala level Community Organizations (COs), Village level Village Organizations (VOs) and Union Council level Local Support Organizations (LSOs). SRSO has the privilege to organize 128 LSO’s in its operational area. All LSOs are being led by women, being the incredible achievement of SRSO among other development organizations working in the area.

The COs/VOs/LSOs take a lead role in the implementation of various developmental activities directly as well as through SRSO. The COs implements the activities for livelihoods and social protection including identification of micro credit beneficiaries, participants of skills training and micro grants. The VOs generally take care of community physical infrastructure while the LSOs act as apex institutions at the Union Council level which in some cases directly implement various activities and in many cases provide guidance and monitoring support to the VOs and COs. In all cases, they represent the foundation of the community institutions i.e the COs and their members.

SRSO has been dedicatedly investing on capacity building of LSOs for last many years with main focus on managerial, financial and record keeping management training. Besides this, special focus has been given on capacity building program on development of linkages to get maximum benefits from other available sources including government for the sustainability of these institutions. SRSO believes that Social Organizer alone cannot bring change but with the involvement of the community. So with the combined efforts of both staff and communities it took a long time to trigger women LSO members for realizing and identifying social issues and their solutions. This leaded to initiation of remarkable development activities by community itself in the areas of education, health, gender and development, livelihoods, agriculture and others.

The benefit of having such institutions of the people is manifold, such as:

Inclusion of the poorest in the development process
Inclusion of women in the development process
Greater unity and social cohesion
Increase in social capital
Creation of sustainable rather than project-based organisations
Grassroots-driven development agenda, compared to donor-driven agendas
Local capacities being built in management, problem identification and solving, and financial literacy
Increase in local resource mobilisation through savings, membership fees, and local donations, in addition to resources being generated through external organisations
Ability of the poorest to develop linkages with external stakeholders for their collective voices to be heard.

Role of Women LSOs in Peace Building:

The tribal system is quite prominent in the upper parts of Sindh province, in which issues related to disputes among different tribes and honor killings are very common. It is quite remarkable that in many cases, women members from different LSOs took initiatives and were the reasons for the resolution of long-lasting disputes among different tries via different negotiations. It has been reported that many lives have been saved via the utilization of the LSOs and VOs platform that would have been killed for honor killings. These LSOs have created history by resolving conflicts/ issues that caused massive bloodshed in the past and were neither resolved by the Police, Politicians, and/or Landlords. These communities are committed to their mission and will continue their journey towards peace.

Role of Women LSOs in promoting Education, particularly Girls’ Education:

The myth of “educating a girl leads to serving the entire generation” has been taken seriously by the women LSOs. Zohra, a community activist, contributed to making many non-functional schools function, which fulfilled the basic requirements of many girls and boys in the village. This encouraged many women activists to take the initiative and join hands in the mission. An LSO named Sujag (district Shikarpur) also took prominent initiatives in promoting education via the conduct of awareness-raising sessions in the villages for the purpose of promoting the importance of education and increasing enrollment of children in the local schools. Taking this initiative as a model, many other women LSOs in the area replicated the said initiatives.

Role of Women LSOs in Developing Linkages:

SRSO believes that the development of linkages of grassroots-level institutions plays a very important role in initiating the development activities on a sustainable basis on a larger scale. Keeping this in view, SRSO initiated the capacity building programs of LSO members with more focus on institutional and linkages development. Year 2012, indicated remarkable achievements in this regard as almost all women LSOs worked quite actively for the development of linkages with local/international organizations, including the government of Pakistan, working in the target areas. It has been reported that the development of linkages helped in solving many local issues and initiated sustainable developmental activities in the areas, which include deputing teachers in schools, accessing basic health facilities, opening bank accounts for local community individuals (women/men), access to flood relief services, and many more interventions.

Role of Women LSOs in Polio Awareness Campaign:

The Role of Women LSOs in the polio awareness campaign was worth mentioning. It started with a polio project executed by SRSO through RSPN. The response of LSO members in understanding the importance of the polio vaccine was encouraging, as expected. These LSOs continued their efforts even after the completion of the project by developing linkages with district health departments to ensure outreach in polio campaigns. These women went door to door to raise awareness about the importance of the polio vaccine and helped the government health department to reach every child. LSOs are in demand generation and are still willing to work voluntarily in this noble cause.

Role of Women LSO in Social Transformation:

In the year 2012, awareness raising on social indicators was also one of the objectives of LSOs, which included discouraging early childhood marriages, promoting education for girls, the importance of computerized National Identity Cards, women’s registration in voters’ lists, the importance of marriage and death certificates, etc. Communities in the remote villages were sensitized via conduction of awareness-raising seminars, workshops, rallies, and by the celebration of important days. 5,000 community women were facilitated with computerized CNICs in coordination with NADRA.