children

Living Memorial Parramatta Female Factory Precinct

ParraGirl — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:23:01 -0600

Using the internet to foster healing

Wendy D — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 12:26:18 -0500

To comment on Wendy's Blog

I think this is a very valuable tool that can be used to foster healing among Kenyan children victims of post electoral violence especially in urban slums where most of the violence occurred.For children this was something they have never witnessed, the destruction , the confusion , some even had to watch killings , which is very traumatic

However, the hurdle could be accessibility to internet as many families do not own computers unless centres are put in place in neighborhoods , fitted with internet access that is sustainable where affected children can share and heal

Thank you
Leonida odongo
Ebony Youth and Orphans Support Initiative Kenya
Nairobi

New Tactics Community Members

Using Government Budgets as a Monitoring Tool

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:20 -0500

Using Government Budgets as a Monitoring Tool

By Lerato Kgamphe

Download full notebook in English and a brief summary in Russian below. [*note]

In this notebook, we learn about following the money. Budgets are used everywhere–from local agencies, to non-governmental organizations, to governments and international bodies. They provide a concrete tool for evaluating how programs and policies actually fulfill their financial and legal obligations. In South Africa, Idasa’s Children’s Budget Unit (CBU) has used budget analyses to monitor the government’s legal obligations, commitments, and progress in advancing child-specific socioeconomic rights and programs. The CBU monitors and evaluates these programs by looking at the government’s budget allocations, spending of funds, and program expenditures and implementation. The power of this tactic lies in its ability to reveal, in black and white, the extent of a government’s efforts towards its human rights obligations and commitments.

The budget is government’s operational plan to deliver a better life for our people. It sets out what you will pay in taxes, how we will spend that money, and what we will deliver. It is a synthesis of all our government policies. The budget is our contract with the nation.
--Trevor Manual, South African Minister of Finance, 1998 Budget Review

Since 1995 the Children’s Budget Unit (CBU) of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa), based in Cape Town, has been using national and provincial government budgets as monitoring mechanisms to advance child-specific socio-economic rights. Budget monitoring allows us to analyze how government conceptualises, implements, and allocates budgets to fulfil its legal obligation to help realize these rights. The rights of the child are explicit, and the government is legally bound to fulfil them: in the South African Constitution, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the African Charter, the child has the right to political, socio-economic, cultural, economic, and environmental rights. In addition, the South African Constitution specifies that the child has the right to basic nutrition, shelter, basic health care services, and social services.

Why use budgets? The budget is the key policy instrument used by a government to ensure that things happen, and thus shows a government’s true priorities. A government’s programs that fulfil its obligations that help realize socio-economic rights must be included in its budget, and it must account not only for the amount budgeted, but also the amount actually spent. Budgets, therefore, are instruments that allow us to monitor how services are delivered and policies implemented. The monitoring of government budgets can lead to policy reform, establish a path for "transparent, effective and efficient" budgeting principles, and make it possible to provide concrete recommendations for program evaluation and improvement. Information gleaned from budget analysis can be used to educate people about their rights, and help them access these rights. Advancement of human rights is a two-way stream. People in need of help must communicate their needs to those in power, and articulate sustainable solutions. And those in power need to know if their methods and programs are effective to ensure that a win-win situation is created.

The budget-monitoring tactic works to aid both sides. Our work has proven that a budget-monitoring project, used effectively, can be an important tool in changing policy. South Africa, for instance, has an extensive social security program for children. The CBU has conducted numerous studies of the accessibility and effectiveness of this program, discovering discriminatory access in undeveloped and rural areas, and a governmental lack of administrative capacity that also hindered access to the program. In our 2001 study, "Budgeting for child socio-economic rights: Government obligations and the child’s right to social security and education" (Cassiem, Streak: 2001, Idasa), we recommended that that age limit of children accessing one of the social security grants be raised from six to 14. This recommendation was put into practice by the government in its 2003/04 budget, and we, together with other civil society organizations, are now focusing on proposals that the program include all children under 18.

In this tactical notebook, after a brief introduction to Idasa and the Children’s Budget Unit, we present a case study of how budget monitoring was used to see how the South African government fulfilled its obligation to provide social security to children. We then generalize the monitoring approach, outlining key questions, and summarize some of the tactic’s positive results. Finally, we offer some discussion of the tactic’s complexity, which should help others think about how to apply it in their own situations.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

The Human Rights Education Program for Women in Turkey

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:18 -0500

The Human Rights Education Program for Women in Turkey

By Liz Ervecik Amado

Download full notebook in english and a brief summary of the notebook in Russian and Armenian below. [*note]

In this notebook we learn about how effective and beneficial building collaborative relationships with government institutions can be to advancing human rights education. Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR)-New Ways in Turkey gained the support and use of government resources for furthering human rights education of women at the local level.

WWHR-New Ways developed a highly successful human rights education curriculum for women but needed an accessible, structured and sustainable way to reach women in need of learning about their rights. They found and developed an excellent partnership through government run, local level community centers. These community centers offered not only professional social workers who could be trained by WWHR-New Ways in facilitating the human rights education curriculum, but also a safe and accessible place for women to learn about their rights. We hope this notebook will provide ideas and insights for others as they seek opportunities for building mutually beneficial and sustainable relationships with government bodies for furthering human rights efforts.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Familiar Tools, Emerging Issues

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:02 -0500

Familiar Tools, Emerging Issues

by Jennifer Prestholdt

Download full notebook below. [*note]

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).

With the help of hundreds of volunteers, Minnesota Advocates has monitored human rights conditions and produced more than 50 reports documenting human rights practices in more than 25 countries. Minnesota Advocates uses traditional human rights monitoring methods to document human rights abuses, but has made a practice of adapting the methodology to address cutting-edge human rights issues. The findings on violence against women in Mexico, Nepal, Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States have been published in reports that include an analysis of each country’s legislation related to women’s rights and the local law enforcement system, as well as recommendations on how to bring laws and practice into conformity with international human rights obligations.

We have recently adapted the methodology used overseas to help us investigate and document the difficulties that refugee and immigrant women in our own community face in obtaining services and protection from domestic violence. Minnesota Advocates also used traditional human rights monitoring methods to document excessive and preventable child mortality as a human rights violation in three countries, each representing different levels of development: the United States, Mexico and Uganda. We then published a report, Global Child Survival: A Human Rights Priority, using these case studies to illustrate that certain groups of children, minority children for example, suffer systematic violations of their rights. Underlying economic and social factors linked to child survival must be addressed in order to effectively combat high rates of preventable child deaths.

Most recently, we have adapted our methodology to monitor transitional justice mechanisms and processes. Countries such as Peru and Sierra Leone are in the process of transitioning from violence and repression to peace, justice and reconciliation; the growing momentum for transitional justice marks a new era in human rights work. More and more frequently, that shift involves confronting past human rights abuses and making institutional reforms in order to protect human rights. Human rights monitoring is one way to help ensure that transitional justice processes move forward.

Using this tactic of monitoring and reporting, we feel that we have been able to make some significant longterm improvements in human rights. This notebook will discuss how Minnesota Advocates identifies and develops practical and sustainable strategies for adapting human rights monitoring methods to emerging human rights issues. By documenting the tactic in this notebook, we hope to spark some creative applications of common human rights monitoring methods in order to improve human rights in different contexts.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Complementary Strengths: Western Psychology and Traditional Healing

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:00 -0500

Complementary Strengths: Western Psychology and Traditional Healing

by Lucrecia Wamb

Download full notebook below. [*note]

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. Rebuilding Hope saw the need for an integrated healing process that would allow families and communities to accept child soldiers back into their lives -- even those who had killed their relatives and burned down villages. Acknowledging that traditional healers are often the first people community members approach when they need help (healing), Rebuilding Hope psychologists approached the healers as well as other community leaders, such as teachers and tribal leaders, to be project partners. The creation of an integrated support system combining western psychology and the traditional healing processes enabled children to be reintegrated into their families and communities as purified people, while the psychologists developed sustainable mental and emotional support systems for them. Such reintegration issues are not unique to Mozambique. Other communities dealing with these complex issues of reintegration, whether of child solders or other populations, can find this tactic helpful in generating ideas toward accessing traditional forms of support and healing.

Mental health practices and interventions in developing countries and post-conflict situations are extremely challenging. A common misperception is that mental health support is the sole task of psychologists, social workers, medical doctors, counselors, and nurses–in other words, western-trained personnel. Our experience, however, shows how a community process of mental health assistance must constructively involve all levels of experience and knowledge in the society. In this tactical notebook, we will describe the reintegration of former child soldiers back into their communities, a process that brought about the collaboration of community leaders, Western-trained psychologists, and local curandieros (healers). All societies and cultures have developed, created, and learned mechanisms to deal with their specific problems in different spheres of life. If we seek to help a community to rebuild itself from trauma, our approach should first ask "how is this society or community already using its own resources to overcome or deal with the problem?"

To illustrate this, I will share with you the experience of a Mozambican nongovernmental organization, Reconstruindo a Esperança (RE, Rebuilding Hope) in working with children affected by military violence, particularly in rural communities. The work focused on providing psychological assistance and promoting community reintegration after 16 years of war, in the process using and reinforcing community resources. In this notebook we focus on Josina Machel Island, a rural community in Maputo province, 130 km from the city of Maputo. The island has 10,000 inhabitants, the majority of whom make a living from agriculture, fishing, livestock, and migratory labor (working in the Republic of South Africa). During the war an important military base was nearby. Many children were used as combatants, and many were sexually exploited.

Collective traumas, like war, are more than the sum of their individual effects. These traumas rip apart the social fabric, damaging the very foundations of social relations upon which mental health depends. Conventional psychotraumatology tends to focus on the individual’s experience, but in order to help individuals heal as community members who have lived a collective trauma, something more is needed. The process must involve the community and its indigenous social and spiritual support mechanisms. People define their identity in relation to their community and ancestors, and after trauma they must rebuild that identity with the community. In the cosmology of that community process, individualized Western psychology alone will not suffice. Rebuilding Hope created a uniquely collaborative process, based on mutual respect for both western and traditional disciplines of healing.

The process we built was as inclusive as possible, facilitating the empowerment of the community as a whole while still caring for the individual psychological needs of our clients. The project encouraged and depended upon the leadership and support of community religious leaders, local teachers, and parents. With the help of traditional local and religious leaders, we forged links with local curandieros. As a result of this collaboration, when those under our psychotherapeutic care felt they needed traditional purification rituals to wash away the bad spirits, we referred them to the curandeiros. Reciprocally, the traditional healers would purify their patients and send them to the psychologists for additional support. As a result, an integrated support system was created: through traditional healing processes, children were reintegrated into their families and communities as purified people, while the psychologists developed sustainability methods for mental and emotional well-being. The result was a symbiotic model of psychotherapeutic interventions, taking into account the local knowledge and culture.

During a period of eight years, Rebuilding Hope has worked with approximately 700 children. The lessons we can learn from this go beyond the reintegration of child soldiers. It is our hope that our experience will help people working in other contexts to effectively integrate into their approaches the local capacities, cultural concepts, and wisdom, catalytic tools that can be essential in rebuilding community mental health. The need for such cross-cultural integration of healing strategies will certainly be relevant elsewhere, not only in the African context–i.e. Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Rwanda, and Ivory Coast–but in other countries as well.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.