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I have been affiliated with the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT)'s New Tactics Project since January 2009 and I must appreciate the enormous knowlege that I have gained from working with Nancy Pearson and Kristin Antin particularly with the Dialogues tactics.

Most importantly is the amount of critical information that one gets from across the world through practitioners who took part in the dialogues on election monitoring, Human Trafficking and The Healing of Memories.

I got to understand how different electoral systems work, how to avoid election rigging and how to perfect the system in order to foster a democratic electoral outcome. This to me is very crucial information that I will share with my colleagues when I go back to Zimbabwe, a country that has been rocked by electoral violence and fround for years now.

The methodology of sharing these ideas with different people around the world is also crucial particularly in developing countries such as Zimbabwe. It is so becuase human rights activists across the world can get to know what is happening in very far away countries and use their contacts to lobby other international actors to act against human rights violations during election period.

The same applies to the issue of human traffficking. Once a state and its neighbours are shamed about the failure to put strong policing tools to stop modern slavery there is a chance of change of policies.

These dialogues also work as important tools for advocacy against human rights violations. The online tactics also provide a safe way for human rights activists to do their work with little interference fom the state security agents while taking vital information to far away destinations where it can be used to alleviate problems in countries which violate human rights such as Zimbabwe.

Most post-conflict countries such as Zimbabwe have very liitle information on how to address post conlict situations. The diaologue on healing Memories provided me with telling stories that I can share with victims of violence in Zimbabwe and other colleagues who work in this sector to see how they can adopt the same methods of telling their stories to make people forgive and forget.

Overally, the dialogues provided a new methodology as well as platform that is very unique in Africa but could be used to fight for the democratization of the State through promotion of human rights observation, the rule of law and national healing as well as reconciliation. I will share my experiences with colleagues in Zimbabwe over this vital tool that I leant at CVT