Social Work with People Practicing Same-Sex ... - ILGA Europe

Studies on this problem may vary and include analysis of the situation, environment,
population, root causes, as well as analysis of who and how already deals with this
issue. We need descriptions of practically tested possible solutions, public attitudes
and social trends. Selection of analysis and research methodologies will depend on the
magnitude and goals of the campaign. The campaign implementation should be based
only on reliable information, including statistical, as well as on carefully selected and
realistic case studies.
Assistance of professional sociologists, whom you can actually entrust implementation
of appropriate studies, will be highly beneficial for problem analysis and evaluation.
Quite illustrative in this regard is recent experience of the Regional Information and
Human Rights Centre for Gay and Lesbian People “Our World”, which has employed the
services of the “TNS Ukraine” Research Company (a network market information agency,
which is a part of a leading international group of companies, TNS, with headquarters in
London). We should emphasize that many other research organizations were involved
in LGBT-related scientific sociological studies, including the Centre of Social Expertise
of the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; JSC
“Kyiv International Institute of Sociology ltd” (MIIS); NGO “Ukrainian Institute for
Social Research, named after Oleksandr Yaremenko”, etc. At the same time some LGBT
organizations, having limited budget and highly qualified specialists, managed to
conduct scientific studies on their own. These include Information and Educational
Centre “Women's Network” (Kyiv) and NGO “Donbass-SotsProekt” (Donetsk).
We should add that social research is quite costly element of the advocacy campaign, so
it is expedient to utilize services of such commercial social research structures as “TNS
Ukraine” or KIIS only if you secured sufficient funding for your advocacy campaign.
4. Setting goals of the advocacy campaign.
After you clearly formulated the object of the advocacy campaign and completed
comprehensive analysis of all related issues, it is time to set specific goals and
appropriate objectives of the campaign.
Setting of goals should be based on the following principle: the goal needs to be clear,
understandable and attainable.
The following questions can be used to verify this exercise:
• Is the goal focused and narrow?
• Is the goal clearly formulated, or it can be interpreted in many ways?
• Is the goal attainable within specific period of time?
• Do the organization and its supporters have enough resources (material and
human) to achieve the goal in given period of time?
• Is the goal attractive for other people and organizations?
• Is it possible to build the coalition to achieve this goal, or all activities will be
carried out independently?
We should remember that the goal is the long-term ultimate outcome of given activity.
It should be perceived as a completed action, as a fact, that will emerge as a result of
the advocacy campaign. For example, legalization of the same-sex civil partnerships
in Ukraine is the perfect goal of the advocacy campaign. On the other hand, such
statement as “improvement of the quality of life of HIV positive MSM”, cannot serve
as the goal of advocacy, because it describes the process, rather than result. So, you
should avoid such terms as “improvement”, “promotion”, “expansion” and the like in
the formulation of the goal. If the organization has several variants of the goal, it
can consider each one in detail and identify the most important/priority, or attainable
option for a given campaign.
Additional analysis of the problem can reveal that it is be impossible or extremely
difficult to achieve expected impact. In this case it would be necessary to narrow the
initial goal, or to select the alternative one. Do not launch your campaign if you are not
positive about its results.
Event “Man&Man”, 2008
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