Soldiers’ Mothers of Saint Petersburg offers educational sessions to conscripts, army recruits and family members of Russian soldiers to inform them of human rights violations by the military and the possibility of refusing conscription. They discuss human rights and the articles of the constitution that apply to conscription and learn how to write letters to the authorities demanding their rights. About 120,000 people have participated in the training sessions over 12 years and about 90,000 have protected their legal right not to serve in the army. About 5,000 people who were tortured in the army successfully petitioned not to return to their units.

The NGO PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health) and Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, Kenya's largest women's organization, have collaborated to offer alternatives to Female Genital Mutilation. They combine community education for young girls and parents with alternative rites of passage that preserve many traditional aspects of the coming-of-age ritual, while prohibiting physical harm to girls.

The alternative, non-FGM centered coming of age ritual preserves many of the traditional features of the old version—seclusion, family life education, celebration and gift giving. Thus, parents and their daughters are able to choose to honor cultural traditions without sacrificing their rights to health and economic opportunity. From an initial class of 28 girls participating in a week-long ceremony, the program has grown considerably: by late 1998, more than 1,100 girls had 'graduated' in a dozen ceremonies in several communities. The program has achieved success in that none of the girls who have 'graduated' have given into societal pressure to be circumcised.

Education Watch Bangladesh was set up in 1998 by a group of like-minded individuals and organizations concerned about educational development in the country.

Tactic Information

Intervention type: 

Building Human Rights Cultures and Institutions - Collaboration

Objective: 

take on the role of an independent, research-based monitoring mechanism for assessing progress in Education For All in Bangladesh

Sector initiating tactic: 

Civil society

Sector intended to affect: 

Civil society

Sector intended to affect: 

Government

Sector intended to affect: 

Media

Other Resources: 

CAMPE--Education Watch

Since 2000, the Human Rights Observatories Network has worked with youth groups in various regions of Brazil, inspiring them to learn about human rights and to learn how to report on and to monitor their communities’ access to rights.

Tactic Information

Intervention type: 

Building Human Rights Cultures and Institutions - Building awareness

Objective: 

To train young people to monitor human rights.

Sector initiating tactic: 

Civil society

Sector intended to affect: 

Civil society

Education for Life (ELF) uses an accelerated learning system approach with grassroots educators and leaders to contribute to grassroots community empowerment throughout the Philippines.

Tactic Information

Intervention type: 

Building Human Rights Cultures and Institutions - Building capacity

Objective: 

To use participatory education to empower communities to exercise their human and civil rights

Sector initiating tactic: 

Civil society

Sector intended to affect: 

Civil society

Founded in 1995 by the Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa (IDASA), the Budget Information Service evaluates federal budgets to determine whether government human rights obligations to particular groups of people are being met.  After first determining the government’s legal obligations to a constituency, then analyzing budget tables to see how the constituency’s economic and social rights are promoted and protected in budget allocations.  IDASA uses a human rights-based approach to draft budget recommendations, presenting them to government members, lobbying groups, and members of the media.

Tactic Information

Intervention type: 

Prevention Tactics - Removing opportunities for abuse

Objective: 

use budget analyses to monitor the government’s legal obligations, commitments, and progress in advancing child-specific socioeconomic rights and programs

Sector initiating tactic: 

Civil society

Sector intended to affect: 

Government

The Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) trains peer counselors to provide mental health services to refugees in Guinea and Sierra Leone.  With more than 300,000 refugees from Sierra Leone and more than 100,000 refugees from Liberia, staff and resources were far too limited to meet the needs of those who could benefit from mental health services in the refugee camps.  As a result, CVT began training of refugees themselves as peer counselors—or Psychosocial Agents (PSAs). Over 120 para-professionals have been trained through this approach.

For a detailed exploration of this tactic, please click on the following link to consult our tactical notebook, <b><a href="http://www.newtactics.org/en/RebuildingCommunities">Rebuilding Communities</a></b> by Binta Barry and Nancy L. Pearson.

Tactic Information

Intervention type: 

Building Human Rights Cultures and Institutions - Building capacity

Objective: 

To build local and long-term capacity building within communities to address massive human rights atrocities

Sector initiating tactic: 

Civil society

Sector intended to affect: 

Civil society