English, education

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.

Tandem©: Cross-cultural exchange between police and migrants

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:16 -0500

Tandem©: Cross-Cultural Exchange Between Police and Migrants

by Maria Hirtenlehner, International Centre for Cultures and Languages (ICCL)

Download full notebook below. [*note]

The international Centre for Cultures and Languages (ICCL) in Vienna adapted the "TANDEM©" program– originally created for language learning– to human rights education with police and migrant populations in a unique and profound way called "intercultural-TANDEM©."

The result has been "Tandem© Learning", a cultural contact program that improves intercultural understanding. The intercultural-Tandem© program involves a series of interactions between 20 to 25 high level police officers and an equal number of migrants from other countries. The interactions occur mainly in structured group settings and in one-on-one Tandem© pair relationships. To date, over 150 high level police officers and about the same number of migrants have participated in this life changing intercultural experience. The program was designed by the ICCL in Vienna in response to several violent interactions between the police and migrants in Austria.

In Austria, the Tandem© program currently operates as part of a larger police-training course. Officers must apply for participation in the program, which consists of seven four-hour training sessions augmented by several informal activities involving the tandem pairs. Although the program benefits from its affiliation with the police training course, this model could also be implemented and succeed independently.

The program began in 1999 and interest in it continues to grow. Last year, the program received at least 80 applications from high-level police officers from all over Austria for 25 available positions for each program offered. The program has documented improvements in attitudes of both police and migrant participants.

This notebook provides a unique and applicable model to a problem that occurs worldwide. The challenges in adapting it to different contexts will relate to how and where Tandem© program is implemented, the corresponding degree of support needed from the police hierarchy, the availability of funding, and the ability to recruit enough participants from the police and particularly the migrant community to participate.

*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.

Sending Out an SMS: A rapid-response mobile phone network engages a youth constituency to stop torture fast

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:14 -0500

Sending Out an SMS

by Anneke Bosman

Download full notebook below. [*note]

Amnesty International-Netherlands recognized the power of text-messaging technology (also known as short-messaging service, or SMS) to attract new members, build awareness of the campaign against torture and engage new people in quickly responding to cases of torture through Urgent Action appeals. The initial result was 520 new members gained directly from SMS participation with over 5,000 additional people becoming active in the SMS urgent action campaign. This notebook puts special emphasis on how Amnesty took advantage of SMS technology to build a new constituency among young people.

Golden Misabiko, a journalist in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was arrested and imprisoned without any charge in January 2001. It was feared he would be tortured. Amnesty International sent out an Urgent Action to members all over the world. We, at the Dutch section, sent out a text message to 8,000 cell-phone users in the Netherlands who participate in our new text-message alert network. Within 48 hours we sent a protest fax with thousands of signatures to the authorities in the DRC. Golden was released in May 2001. He had not been tortured. Golden wrote to Amnesty, "When I heard in prison that Amnesty campaigned for my release I knew: Je vais sortir (I will be released)." And so it happened.

Amnesty International has found a new "weapon" to use in its battle against torture: cell-phone text messages. These messages of up to 160 characters and transmitted by cell phone are known in many countries by the acronym SMS, which stands for "short-messaging service." With these messages, protests can be gathered faster than ever, enabling Amnesty International to take action against torture and other abuses more quickly. About 39 percent of the cell-phone campaigns conducted by Amnesty in 2002 were successful. Prisoners of conscience were released, people who had "disappeared" were found and death sentences were not carried out.

Cell-phone campaigning also has a special appeal for youth, and we found this campaign attracted new younger members into Amnesty in a way that other outreach and activities had not. Young people are the most frequent and numerous cell-phone users, and it is young people that Amnesty wants to reach. Young people do want to campaign for causes they believe in, but like anyone else, they prefer to do so in a way that is consistent with their lifestyles and habits. By using this popular tool of youth culture, Amnesty draws in new activists who will add to its campaigning power for a long time to come.

In this tactical notebook I will describe how we developed this text-message alert network in the Netherlands and how it helped attract a new constituency of support. To understand this alert method, one must also understand Amnesty’s previous methods to involve its membership in responding to human rights abuse around the world. All Amnesty campaigns have a dual function. They direct a focused response to a place in the world where someone needs help, using simple actions that large numbers of people can participate in and know they are making a difference. At the same time, these campaigns educate the public and build a global consciousness about human rights abuses such as torture. The text-messaging campaign adds something new to both objectives. It can generate a faster response to help the victim, while at the same time expanding Amnesty’s educational impact to a new constituency.

*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.

Powerful Persuasion

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:10 -0500

Powerful Persuasion

By Emile Short

Download full notebook below. [*note]

See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

In this notebook, we learn about some of the most difficult human rights violations to eradicate–customary or traditional practices based on deep-seated beliefs, particularly those with a spiritual dimension. One such practice is the Trokosi, in Ghana, a system of servitude that meets the community need for justice and the material and sexual needs of fetish priests. Women and young girls are brought and kept in fetish shrines to atone for sins or crimes allegedly committed by one of their relatives. The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) recognized that legislation outlawing such practices may not be effective and may, in some cases, result in driving a customary practice further underground. Respected leaders–at local and national levels–engaged in direct dialogue with perpetrators, victims, other community leaders, and the community at large to facilitate understanding of the practice, while providing alternatives and avenues for abandoning the practice without losing status. There are many ways in which respected leaders can be enlisted to help community members understand the dynamics of customary or traditional practices, and to address the underlying complexities of such practices in order to transform or change those that violate basic human rights.

Some of the most difficult human rights violations to address are customary or traditional practices based on deep-seated beliefs of a community or people, particularly practices that have a spiritual dimension. In the Trokosi system in Ghana, women and virgin girls are taken without their consent to fetish shrines to atone for sins or alleged crimes committed by family members. They are forced to serve the shrine priests through manual labor, including farming and cooking, and are sexually exploited as well. The practice occurs mainly in remote areas of the Volta Region of Ghana, which is dominated by an ethnic group called the Ewes. Through a coalition effort involving the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ, a constitutional and statutory body), International Needs Ghana (ING, an NGO), the National Commission on Civic Education (another constitutional body), and the traditional leaders from the Ewe communities, we have succeeded in liberating thousands of young women and girls held in this bondage.

Our tactic is to mobilize the support of respected community leaders, such as chiefs, queen mothers, and local governmental officials, using them as resources in seminars and durbars2 on the human rights implications of the practice and recommending voluntary liberation of the victims. After these meetings, we enter direct negotiations with the shrine priests and elders, persuading them to voluntarily end the Trokosi practice. Because they speak the same language and hail from the same communities as the practitioners, the community leaders have played a crucial role in changing the mind-set, beliefs, and behavior of those involved in the human rights abuse. This approach is useful when dealing with cultural or traditional practices based on deeply entrenched beliefs, especially when the practice has a spiritual dimension and practitioners are reluctant to abolish it for fear of incurring the wrath of the gods. Experience combating female genital mutilation taught us that legislation prohibiting traditional and customary practices is ineffective if not preceded by intense public education programs.

In addition, human rights groups must engage in dialogue with practitioners, working to change their mindset and persuade them to voluntarily give up the abusive practice. It can be difficult, however, for human rights groups to achieve such engagement if they are perceived as "outsiders" by the traditional communities. Well-intentioned human rights efforts can easily be construed as an attack on people’s fundamental cultural and religious beliefs. Experience suggests that you cannot change deep-seated beliefs and practices by attacking them, nor can the law be enforced if there is no public cooperation. A different path must be found. We set out to convince practitioners and other stakeholders of the necessity of changing the Trokosi practice. We wanted the communities to see the practice for what it was: an abuse of human rights and an attack on the dignity and humanity of women in their own communities. We also wanted them to recognize that traditions are flexible and can be transformed over time, and that this practice could be changed without offending the gods. Unless we could achieve such an attitudinal change, legislation and enforcement could result in the practice being driven underground, and women and girls continuing to be trapped in this system of bondage.

ING provided support and oversight of the effort, setting up initial meetings with the Trokosi priests, shrine elders, and community chiefs, and arranging the seminars and durbars. I represented the CHRAJ, while the third key participant was Mama Adokua Asigble IV, Queen Mother from the Tefle traditional area and member of the National Commission on Civic Education. This process has taken more than a decade, and has involved a complex series of integrated steps: human rights advocacy and education in the various communities; negotiations with shrine priests and elders; and, for the freed Trokosi women, vocational skills training programs, emancipation ceremonies, and counseling and rehabilitation support. In this notebook we focus on the crucial method of engaging with respected community leaders to gain access, conduct educational programs, negotiate with the shrines, and carry out the emancipation process. According to the estimates of our NGO partner, 3,000 Trokosi women and children have so far been liberated through these efforts. In 1998 we also secured the passage of the "Prohibition of customary servitude" law; this has helped give momentum to the process, despite the fact that no prosecutions have yet taken place under this law.

*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.

Open Memory

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

Open Memory

By Damian Ferrari

Download full notebook below.[*note]

Read how Memoria Abierta (Open Memory), a human rights organization in Argentina, organizes thousands of documents related to the state terrorism and makes them accessible through an online database as a way to raise public awareness about what happened in Argentina from 1976-1983.

Making the Global Local

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:07 -0500

Making the Global Local: Applying Global Agreements to Local Enforcement of Human Rights Laws

By Columbus Igboanusi

Download full notebook below. [*note]
See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

In the human rights field, there is often a wide gap between the locus of abuse and the policies, laws and treaties that were created to prevent or stop it. Furthermore, often the discussion of these abuses and the law and policies to prevent them are only talked about in high level policy and diplomatic forums. The tactic presented in this notebook helps bridge these gaps. The League of Human Rights Advocates in Slovakia recruits people from the disenfranchised population – in this case the Roma – to serve as human rights monitors. The monitors learn, often for the first time, about their own rights under national and international law. The LHRA and the monitors then work to enforce those rights –that were signed into existence in far-off capitals–in their own town halls, police stations, schools and communities. The information from local monitors is used to present the true, on the ground, impact of national and international laws in the country. The work done in Slovak may provide each of us with tactical ideas to address similar gaps in each of our communities and countries.

This notebook describes the creation and functioning of a systematic volunteer network of human rights monitors in Slovakia, maintained by the League of Human Rights Advocates (LHRA). The LHRA believes that its grassroots monitoring of local compliance with international human rights commitments assists and encourages the state and its apparatus to live up to its international obligations. The LHRA’s investigatory work, public education efforts and high-level contacts with international human rights NGOs also enable it to put considerable pressure on the Slovak government to live up to its international commitments. The LHRA’s volunteer monitors thus help achieve justice for local Roma people and others suffering human rights abuses. In addition, since LHRA monitors are themselves Roma activists living in Roma communities. The LHRA training process empowers them and their communities to understand and stand up for their rights.

See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

*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.

Making Sense of the Information Wilderness

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:04 -0500

Making Sense of the Information Wilderness

By Sasa Madacki

Download full notebook below. [*note]
See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

Sometimes institutional strengthening tactics applied inside an organization improve the way human rights practitioners do their work and what they can do. Organizations that use their resources effectively, can more effectively advance human rights work. In this notebook, the experience of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Sarajevo is presented. They built a strong information system and central role for an information specialist or librarian. The utilization of this information system and information specialist’s skills allowed other staff to better, and more productively, focus on their core programmatic missions. Although the Human Rights Centre is now a fairly large and relatively well-funded organization, the tactic explained in this notebook presents ideas in a way that nearly any group doing human rights work could apply this organizational strengthening tactic.

When I walked into my new office at the library of the Human Rights Centre in Sarajevo, I found myself with two cardboard boxes containing a card catalogue, an inventory list, a thousand dusty books and a pile of documents. A total wilderness. It was an idyllic and inspiring sight: a librarian sitting in the middle of a room surrounded by stacks of papers with the daunting task of creating order out of chaos. Creating this order would yield an efficient tool to promote human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina – where human rights are so abused and where reliable sources are lacking. In this notebook it is my modest hope to describe the results of this transformation, and what we have learned from it that can help others working for human rights. I believe now that every organization can improve its work and more effectively promote human rights and justice, if it can systematically develop both a library and a librarian’s position appropriate to its own size and objectives. The goal of this notebook will be to take the Sarajevo Centre’s experience and draw out lessons to enable other organizations to develop the tools and skills to more effectively navigate the ever-expanding wilderness of available information that can help them in their work.

See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

*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.

Human Rights Advocacy Utilizing Religious Perspectives and Opinion Leaders

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:03 -0500

by Mashadi Said

Download full notebook below. [*note]

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 rights 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.

*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.

Engaging Key Stakeholders

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:01 -0500

by Syed Asif Atlaf Chowdhury and Roy Romesh Chandra

Download full notebook below. [*note]

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. Although Bangladesh has one of the lowest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the world, it is surrounded by countries in which the disease is widespread, and many worry that it is only a matter of time before it spreads to Bangladesh. Transportation workers, such as truck drivers, are particularly at risk of contracting and spreading the disease. CARE-Bangladesh worked to gain the trust and respect of the Bangladesh Truck Driver’s Federation and then together implemented a program of advocacy including health education and services through integrated partnership. Particularly important was the cultivation of a sense of ownership of the project on the part of the union, including the employment of paid peer educators and the use of union premises for outreach work and health services. The story of CARE-Bangladesh’s work provides important insights into engaging key stakeholders in advocacy work that is socially acceptable and relevant to the lives and experience of target communities.

Since the first identification of HIV and AIDS, their prevalence has been particularly high in communities situated on transport routes, such as border posts and port towns and cities. The HIV virus spreads as people travel, so transport workers are particularly vulnerable. Although Bangladesh is currently rated 161st of 166 countries and territories in rates of HIV/AIDS, it is in close proximity to Asian countries with relatively high rates. Rather than wait for the epidemic to arrive, CARE-Bangladesh sought a strategy that would prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

CARE-Bangladesh recognized that it was crucial to engage transport workers, unions, and companies as key stakeholders in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS. As a result, in partnership with the workers’ union and associations, and with owners of the transport companies, we initiated a behavioural change program to prevent an HIV/AIDS epidemic and to provide quality health care services to transport workers, especially truckers. Because we planned to give the project over to its participants–namely the transport union–after the initial design phase, the primary stakeholders, especially the union, have been actively involved in program development and activities. By holding the union accountable and responsible, CARE-Bangladesh has facilitated a process whereby the workers’ union has become an implementer of health care services, including prevention services, related to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV.

The active involvement of the union has brought many positive results. Its participation and sense of ownership have been essential in sustaining the program and making it socially acceptable. Union involvement was also instrumental in the scaling up of project activities and the ability to quickly create a nationwide service network.

To address the mobility and needs of some 300,000 transport workers, the program now has 45 Drop-In Centres (DICs) nationwide, each called "Traveller," about 300 paid peer outreach workers, and 25,000 volunteer peer educators (recruited from the transport workers themselves). Approximately 4,000 transport workers receive health services from the DICs each month. The project has also established a system for the social marketing of condoms through Peer Outreach Workers and more than 200 local depot holders. On average, 200,000 condoms are sold through this system every month. The establishment of these DICs not only addresses the mobility of transport workers, but greatly improves their access to effective health care services.

In this notebook we share our experience of engaging critical key stakeholders–CARE-Bangladesh, the transport trade union, and the transport workers–to create a holistic approach to HIV/AIDS education, prevention, and treatment. We hope our experiences will be helpful for others who want to work with community-based organizations, unions, and other civil society actors in the context of their own countries and issues. And we hope this effort will provide a model for establishing effective cross-border interventions 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 http://www.adobe.com

Engaging the Media: Building support for minimum wage reform

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:01 -0500

by Jee Hyeon Kim, Korean Women Workers Associations United (KWWAU)

Download full notebook below. [*note]

The 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.

This tactical notebook shares the efforts of Korean Women Workers Associations United (KWWAU) to engage the South Korean media to build public awareness about South Korea’s unjust minimum wage system. As you will see, this was one of many coordinated tactics employed in their campaign to change the minimum wage law and system in order to provide living wages to the most vulnerable workers.

Successful engagement of the media most often requires many other supporting tactics. KWWAU shares the approaches they found were most helpful in engaging the media: credible documentation of the problem, petitions to demonstrate public interest in the issue, and visually engaging performances and demonstrations that are easily captured by the media. With media interest, our campaign was able to expand, bring in new supporters, and provide us with leverage in our negotiation and lobbying efforts.

In the aftermath of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) crisis in 1997 there was a swift increase in the numbers of poor workers in South Korea and the minimum wage re-emerged as a social issue. The greatest victims of globalization in South Korea were women, like other countries funded by the IMF, many Korean workers were laid off and transformed into irregular workers.

Prior to the use of this tactic, the KWWAU was involved in organizing subcontract women workers to advocate for their rights. In the process of their labor organizing work with this segment of irregular workers in 2000, they discovered the problem of the minimum wage system. The low minimum wage had become an urgent problem, particularly among subcontract workers in South Korea. KWWAU determined they needed to work to raise the increment of the minimum wage so subcontract women workers would benefit. KWWAU began organizing nation-wide campaigns in nine cities, resulting in the first challenge to the Korean minimum wage system since its inception in 1988. Beginning in 2002, other organizations joined the KWWAU in advocating for improvements in the minimum wage system. A "minimum wage network" was established. The campaign expanded to other regions, focusing on raising the minimum wage and transforming the minimum wage system itself.

The KWWAU’s efforts have resulted in significant changes to the minimum wage law that improves working conditions for minimum wage earners. Their efforts have also transformed the annual decision of the Minimum Wage Council into an important social issue in South Korea. The KWWAU and its partners succeeded in raising public awareness and concern regarding the minimum wage system, and creating a social movement that has made it possible for many poor women to benefit from increasing minimum wages and greater protections.

*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.