What Is Advocacy? Its Types Explained!

by Purvi Dalvi Writer

Imagine you are in a market to purchase a new smartphone. You look at different brand advertisements and choose a phone that offers not only amazing features but also a data plan with unlimited talk time, text, and data for an attractive price. Exciting, right? You sign up and start using your new phone. Next month you receive a mail from the network company that is shocking owing to higher rates. The provider has given away an outlandish fee for the coverages on your plan.

How can your plan have coverages if they were unlimited in the first place? You file a complaint to the concerned company but receive no support. What else can you do? You then could reach out to public advocates. What is public advocacy? What category do they fall under? Let us find out answers to these.

What is public advocacy?

It is the act where an individual or group of people influence or support a cause. This can take several forms in the private and public arena. The kind of public advocacy groups present around are –

Special interests’ groups who are advocates in the political realm.

Patient advocates who fight for the rights of the patients in the healthcare industry. These individuals work in the hospitals itself.

There are, of course, non-profit organisations who are available to better the experience of the consumers. These organisations research on consumer interests, release information and try to advance pro-consumer laws.

Such advocates involve in the procedure right from scratch, such as helping to write legislation, entering litigation under industry such as insurance providers, filing class-action lawsuits, and lots more. Precisely why, a reputation management company in India offers advocacy as a part of their service.

Ombudsman:

Some advocates work as a part of the Government. The person appointed by the Government for the redressal of citizen complaints against public services or organisation is called Ombudsman. If the ombudsman receives any claim, they investigate and make recommendations based on their findings. Their role is nothing than that of mediator. They try to find a solution with the agency under target based on the complaint received by the consumer.

Self-advocacy:

These are the people who speak representing their ideologies and defend their rights. There are instances where the person needs to become their advocate. Say you make a bill payment, and the next month’s bill shows you still owe the amount; you need to speak up for yourself to clear the matter. You need to head to the company, take the receipt, bill amount, and ask them to credit the amount appropriately. This is self-advocacy. It also explains the example mentioned above.

Individual/case advocacy:

It is about speaking for or defending the rights of another person or specific group who are not in a position to defend themselves. There are examples where an organisation may do so. So, in Egypt, someone bought a suit before the courts to force a couple to get divorced when neither person in the marriage wanted one. The issue though complex, the couple resisted. A group of Egyptian lawyers decided to take the matters in their hand and defended the couple.

A reputation management company in India opts for only public advocacy as they fight for public causes such as climate change, categories of women, children, and workers.