| A Call to End Corruption | In this notebook a strong message was sent to theTurkish government when 30 million people turned off their lights for a full minute. With this simple action the people of Turkey began to speak out against government corruption and break the cylce of fear and apathy. Turning off lights turned into stronger forms of protest and became the biggest public protest against corruption in Turkish history.
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| A Mock Tribunal to Advance Change | In this notebook we learn about the creative and effective use of a
mock tribunal to change public perceptions and beliefs regarding
violations against women, and to change public policy and law. BAOBAB
for Women’s Human Rights, in collaboration with CIRDDOC (Civil Resource
Development and Documentation Centre), highlighted violations of
women’s rights in Nigeria that were viewed by the public as normal or
even justifiable abuse.
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| Access to Justice: Creating local level, citizen action mediation bodies to ensure human rights | 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. 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 by
addressing their individual and collective needs.
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| Action Theatre | The goal of Action Theatre is to develop the capacities of young people
and cultural activists at the grassroots level to be a force for
change. Action Theatre helps to create a society based on human rights, gender
equity and social justice.
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| Breaking the Silence | This notebook describes how Never Again (nigdy Wiecej), a Polish anti-racism group uses a number of tactics to attract volunteers and spread information about hate crimes and racism in Poland. Never again targets young people through concerts and football games and recruits them to join the cause. Some of these volunteers become correspondents that collect and publish information about racism in Poland and send this information to the media. This tactic encourages the spread of information for general education.
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| Complementary Strengths: Western Psychology and Traditional Healing | In this notebook, we learn about efforts to integrate and maximize
knowledge from traditional and western healing methods to reintegrate
child soldiers into communities devastated by war.
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| Educating the Next Generation | In this notebook we learn about an Albanian organization that seized an opportunity to integrate human rights into the public education system. The Albanian Center for Human Rights worked with the new democratic government in the post- communist transition period and successfully introduced human rights education into the public curriculum. This was an effort to prepare Albanians for their transition to democracy.
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| Engaging Key Stakeholders | In this notebook, we learn about how the development agency
CARE-Bangladesh involved key stakeholders, particularly a transport
workers’ union, in the task of HIV/AIDS prevention in Bangladesh. This story provides important insights into
engaging key stakeholders in advocacy work that is socially acceptable
and relevant to the lives and experience of target communities.
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| Engaging the Media: Building support for minimum wage reform | The Korean Women Workers Associations United (KWWAU) and its partners effectively engaged media to raise public
awareness and concern regarding the minimum wage system, thereby
assisting in the creation of a social movement that has succeeded in
changing the minimum wage law to afford greater protections for
workers, especially for women.
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| Expanding Access to Justice | Until a few years ago, there were no legal firms in Brazil that offered
free services to people in need. The Pro-Bono Institute has created a
new legal tradition in São Paolo, convincing major law firms to donate
their legal services and connecting them with NGOs in need of legal
services. The Institute has recruited about 140 lawyers and is offering
a variety of free services to all kinds of NGOs, including support for
important human rights cases.
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| Familiar Tools, Emerging Issues | Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights uses traditional human rights
monitoring methods to document human rights abuses, but in this
notebook we will learn how the group has also made a practice of
adapting this methodology to emerging human rights issues. Minnesota
Advocates has identified and developed practical and sustainable
strategies for adapting human rights monitoring methods to address
domestic violence (in Eastern Europe and the U.S.), child survival (in
Mexico, Uganda and the U.S.) and transitional justice (in Peru).
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| Human Rights Advocacy Utilizing Religious Perspectives and Opinion Leaders | 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 in the development and training of the human rights curriculum.
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| Human Rights and the Corporation | In this notebook Reed Addis describes the development of the Human
Rights Compliance Assessment by the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
The Compliance Assessment, based somewhat on the model of an
Environmental Impact Assessment, was developed through a long process
of consultation with businesses from many different industrial sectors,
and provides a framework through which businesses can assess their
human rights obligations and measure the liabilities and human rights
risks in countries where they operate or plan to locate.
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| I'll Walk Beside You | In this notebook we learn about the the process of creating 'briefers' to accompany victims during the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). These 'briefers' aided victims before, during, and after they testified by providing psychosocial support and legal support.
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| Making Sense of the Information Wilderness | In this notebook we learn about how effective libraries and librarians can promote human rights by providing information to people in places where reliable sources are lacking.
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| International Monitoring Bodies | This notebook demonstrates how international mechanisms can be a powerful tool for organizations trying to bring about change in their community. This notebook uses the example of Northern Ireland and describes how the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) was able to successfully utilise the UN Committee Against Torture to pressure the UK to establish mechanisms and standards for human rights.
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| Leveraging the Money | In this notebook Ulrich Mueller describes a strategy of the FoodFirst
Information and Action Network to influence large mining operations
that were causing various human rights abuses, by putting pressure on
banks and other financial institutions that invest in those mines.
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| Making Allies | In this notebook we learn about how the Russia nongovernmental organization Citizens' Watch created relationships with key government officials to promote human rights. Citizens' Watch recognized the potential for engaging bureaucrats to advance human rights in Russia.
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| Making the Global Local | In the human rights field there is often a gap between local human rights abuses and the international laws and treaties that are meant to prevent these abuses. The League of Human Rights Advocates in Slovakia recruits members of a disenfranchised population and trains them to become human rights monitors. These monitors watch for human rights abuses in their own locality and then translate international human rights laws and apply them to their local situations.
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| Making the State Pay | This notebook describes how one organization (ICAR) in Romania was able to pressure the government to accept its moral and legal obligation to provide care to torture victims. The group had international support but they recognized that it was the states responsibility to rehabilitate this socially marginalized group.
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