THE NEW TACTICS NEWSLETTER – June 21, 2006
New Tactics in the Philippines: A Follow-up to the Asia Workshop
Forum-Asia and Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP) co-hosted a New Tactics follow-up workshop in the Philippines to introduce tools shared at the Asia Regional Training Workshop (August 2005). The workshop took place on May 20-21, 2006.
The workshop gathered 38 participants from Metro-Manila, Visayas and Mindanao. The participants were primarily from grassroots, sectoral and activist organizations with which TFDP and its regional units are working. The New Tactics tools that were presented and used during the workshop included: Tactical Mapping tool, Vision Gallery Exercise, the Myth/Reality/Value tool, the Spectrum of Allies and the Tactics timeline/campaign plan.
[Online resource on SWOT analysis tool]
TACTICAL NOTEBOOKS: New releases from the ASIA Regional Training Workshop
Indonesia: The National Working Group for Human Rights Dissemination and Promotion (NWG) in Indonesia developed a human rights education curriculum for all age levels in both public and private schools. In order to create support for such a human rights curriculum that also encompassed religious educational institutions, an effective tactic was to engage key and respected leaders–community and religious leaders as well as teachers–in the development and training of the human right curriculum.
By taking the time and effort to engage opinion and religious leaders in the process, the NWG was able to develop their critical support and integrate their needs and concerns in order to overcome barriers and challenges to human rights education. To date, 400 opinion leaders including community and religious leaders and teachers as well as 1,000 civics teachers in both government and private schools have been trained by the Department of Education in using the curricula. There have also been 31 provincial committees on human rights that have been set up to provide training and on-going support to the trainers. Guidelines and reference materials have been developed and are soon to be published. These materials address human rights values as in the Indonesian cultural and religious context and designed with the consultation and assistance in order to overcome the perception that human rights values are Western concepts that impinge upon Indonesian cultural and religious values. Instead, the process has lead to a mutual recognition of basic human values.
Nepal: The Centre for Victims of Torture (CVICT) in Nepal instituted a tactic to circumvent the problem of police abuse through a process of rights-based community mediation. This community mediation process was piloted in three districts of the country and has now expanded to twelve. The tactic trains local people as mediators and resources to their communities on basic laws and human rights. In addition, it has served as a vehicle to empower women to become community leaders, addressing their individual and collective needs.
In the three districts there are currently 90 Human Rights Mediation Committees (HRMCs) and 90 Women Peace Committees (WPCs) at the Village Development Committee level and 810 HRMCs at the ward level. The WPCs have served approximately 8,000 women who have been included in awareness building programmes and 4,865 women who received basic training on human rights, basic laws and mediation skills. From those who received that training, 1,993 women currently work as volunteers. A total of 964 disputes–out of 1,273–were successfully settled. In addition, legal aid was provided to 24 women to pursue 28 cases in the formal court system. Up to now, both committee types have successfully settled 3,107 out of 3,939 community level disputes. Evidence of the success of the HMRCs and WPCs is the allocation of annual funds by the government’s Village Development Committees. This is vital to sustain the programme. Perhaps more significant is a public recognition of the HRMCs and WPCs by the formal justice forums, (i.e. court, district administration, police, etc.). Names of mediators are listed by the district court in its notice board. In addition, positive response has come from police and requests have come from other Village Development Committees to institute the programme.
In the Newsroom: Support for Exchanges Among Human Rights Organizations
The programs International Human Rights Internship Program (IHRIP) supports address a broad range of skills (e.g., fact-finding and documentation, legal aid), address specific rights or the full range of rights (civil, political, economic, social and cultural), and explore work with different constituencies (e.g., women, children, indigenous peoples). Projects typically take one of three formats: On-site training projects; Professional attachments; and Study tours.
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