Central and East European Regional Training Workshop

Dates: April 17-24, 2002
Location: Sinaia, Romania
Partner: ICAR Foundation
Final report [*note]

Participants

Ezel Akay, Filmmaker, Turkey
Encouraging as many people as possible to join a protest through a safe, simple and symbolic act.

Bea Bodrogi, Legal Defence Bureau for National Ethnic Minorities, Hungary
Testing for discrimination

Camelia Doru, ICAR Foundation. Romania
Mobilizing public resources for victims of human rights violations

Colombus Igboanusi, League of Human Rights Advocates, Slovakia
Persuading local and national governments to abide by international human rights commitments by using a network of volunteer monitors

Kozara Kati, Albanian Center for Human Rights, Albania
Incorporating human rights education in the public school system

Sasa Madacki, Human Rights Center, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Supporting human rights advocates by creating a strong information storage and retrieval system.

Rafal Pankowski, Never Again, Poland
Using popular culture to make young people interested in human rights issues.

Boris Pustintsev, Citizens’ Watch, Russia
Building collaborative relationships with reform-minded civil servants to promote change from within the system

Zorana Smiljanic, Otpor!, Serbia
Protecting arrested demonstrators by protesting outside the police stations where they are being detained

Olena Suslova, Women’s Information Consultative Center, Ukraine
Developing a regional group of trainers; training others to be trainers

Ezel Akay, Filmmaker and social and cultural activist, Turkey

Encouraging as many people as possible to join a protest through a safe, simple and symbolic act.
The Campaign of Darkness for Light mobilized 30 million households in Turkey to flicker their lights on and off in order to publicly demonstrate against government corruption. Government corruption had been an open secret and yet the public felt apathetic and powerless to change the situation. The Campaign of Darkness for Light gave people an easy and no-risk action everyone could take – simply turning off their lights at the same time each evening – and thus show their displeasure with the system. Such a simple action – a flick of the switch – and yet when people saw that their neighbors had turned off their lights, too, they felt the power of their collective voices and began to invent their own ways to speak out by gathering on the streets, marching and banging pots and pans.

Bea Bodrogi, Legal Defence Bureau for National Ethnic Minorities, Hungary

Testing for discrimination
Adapting the method used by U.S. organizations on housing discrimination, the Legal Defense Bureau for National and Ethnic Minorities (NEKI) uses a method of testing to collect evidence when there is an allegation of discrimination in order to challenge it in court. Once the Bureau receives a complaint of discrimination, testers are sent out to the alleged place of discrimination. Testing typically involves sending out a Roma and a non-Roma person with similar characteristics and qualifications, with the only major difference between the individuals is ethnicity. The testers record their experiences on assignment forms immediately after the test, offering details of their experiences. The test coordinator (either the organization or the attorney) can then evaluate whether or not differential treatment has taken place. The results of these tests are then used as evidence in discrimination court cases.

Camelia Doru, ICAR Foundation, Romania

Mobilizing public resources for victims of human rights violations
ICAR Foundation in Romania mobilized public resources for the victims of human rights violations in order to get the State to take full responsibility for its actions by acknowledging and treating former political prisoners justly and humanely. Over nearly a decade, ICAR succeeded in getting the State to use public resources to assist in providing first the physical premises for torture treatment centers, and then the right to free medicines and insurance coverage for the specialized care and services that torture survivors required.

Colombus Igboanusi, League of Human Rights Advocates, Slovakia

Persuading local and national governments to abide by international human rights commitments by using a network of volunteer monitors
The League of Human Rights Advocates (LHRA) in Slovakia developed a network from the minority Roma population to serve as human rights monitors. The monitors learn about their own rights under national and international law. The LHRA and the network of monitors then work to enforce those rights in their own town halls, police stations, schools and communities. The information from local monitors is used to present the impact of national and international laws in the country.

Kozara Kati, Albanian Center for Human Rights, Albania

Incorporating human rights education in the public school system
The Albanian Center for Human Rights (ACHR) collaborated with the Albanian Ministry of Education to bring human rights education into all public schools in the country. They took advantage of the post-communist transition period, negotiating with the new democratic government officials to launch a long-term process in which they would prepare Albanian citizens to participate fully in a democracy. Coming out of a political context in which all policies were decided and enacted on a national level, they were able to create a vision to affect the entire education system and have a nationwide impact.

Sasa Madacki, Human Rights Center, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Supporting human rights advocates by creating a strong information storage and retrieval system.
The Human Rights Centre at the University of Sarajevo has strengthened the ability of human rights advocates to access critical information. Organizations that use their resources effectively can more effectively advance human rights work. 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.

Rafal Pankowski, Never Again, Poland

Using popular culture to make young people interested in human rights issues
Never Again mobilizes cultural resources to build an anti-racist youth network in Poland. Through targeted music and sports events, the organization has been able to recruit and sustain popular involvement in anti-racist action. Youth mobilized through Never Again’s events often become involved as network anti-racism correspondents at the local level throughout Poland. As a direct result of its youth-focused campaigns, Never Again has established a network of 150 voluntary correspondents who report on racist and xenophobic activity in their communities. Never Again is able to share the correspondents’ reports on the national and international level. It has also raised awareness about racism among a much larger cross-section of Polish society.

Boris Pustintsev, Citizens’ Watch, Russia

Building collaborative relationships with reform-minded civil servants to promote change from within the system
Citizens’ Watch in Russia builds collaborative relationships with influential bureaucrats within the Russian administration, taking government officials and bureaucrats out of the role of opponent and turning them into partners in advancing human rights. These relationships encourage the development of a democratic and participatory connection between the state and its citizens, one in which human rights are respected and the government functions to serve the people, rather than to rule over it. Citizens’ Watch encourages administration officials to become advocates for human rights by providing them opportunities to travel to seminars, conferences and meetings with international colleagues and providing them with the resources and support to make change within their departments.

Zorana Smiljanic Otpor!, Serbia

Protecting arrested demonstrators by protesting outside the police stations where they are being detained
Otpor! ("Resistance!" in Serbo-Croatian) prepared "Plan B" demonstrations outside of police stations to respond immediately to arrests during protest events in Serbia. Whenever the police arrested activists in their demonstrations, Otpor! would instantaneously launch a second operation, mobilizing more people to show up at the police stations and protest the arrest. The events at the police station became media showpieces, calling attention to the injustice of the arrests and the illegitimacy of the regime. They also provided moral support and encouragement to the arrested activists, turning them into local and national heroes, rather than forgotten victims. Otpor! thus turned the regime’s policy of arrests to its own advantage and continued to build a movement.

Olena Suslova, Women’s Information Consultative Center, Ukraine

Developing a regional group of trainers; training others to be trainers
The Empowering Education Program started in the Ukraine 1996 as a gender program and has now become one of our transformative learning programs using nonviolent, tolerance, and gender sensitive approaches. This program focuses primarily on methods to transfer knowledge and skills as well as to help people voluntarily change their attitudes. Trainers utilize the teaching methodology of this program for different topics of educational programs: human rights, gender and other diverse topics such as non-violence and culture of peace, democracy, etc. Since 1999, the Empowering Education Program has worked in other countries in addition to the Ukraine, including Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Moldova, Tadjikistan, and Uzbekistan.

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