French

Building collaborative partnerships to develop a Local Housing Board

ahorwart — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:06:15 -0500

A group of Non-Government Organizations in Cebu City bonded together and created an alliance which formed the Task Force Tawhanong Pagpuyo (TFT) to respond to the growing numbers of victims who experienced evictions and demolitions of their houses. This problem resulted from the onset of globalization and the government’s development framework which often violated urban poor communities’ rights to housing.

In Cebu City, more than 70% of the population in Cebu City is urban poor – they are unemployed or underemployed, have no land or security of tenure, and live in houses made-up of improvised and light materials. Despite the already inhumane conditions the urban poor experience, the government was demolishing their houses without an arranged relocation site.

The government development programs were designed and prepared without consultation and participation by the people. The program, when implemented, drove away urban poor from their homes. Involvement of community members and urban poor leaders in development planning enable the urban poor to voice their concerns directly to government agencies. As a result, the government agencies can develop solutions tailored to a community’s needs. This process not only realizes immediate gains in the right to housing, but also offers a training ground for urban poor leaders to participate in governance by holding government leaders accountable in protecting people’s right to housing.

Key steps in promoting a community development plan included the creation of local development councils and special bodies to involve people in the development planning process, monitoring, implementation, and the evaluation of the plan. Women were organized towards participation in local governance and pressuring Local Government Units to implement gender and development programs as mandated by law. Finally, the Local Housing Board was created to ensure the right to housing.

The TFT, through a conference, gathered urban poor leaders and identified specific issues. To support its claims and proposed alternatives, case studies were developed and research conducted. These were presented to the local government units and shelter agencies involved. An education and information campaign was conducted in various communities of participating urban poor organizations as well as with judges who issue the demolition and eviction orders.

With pressure mounted through a series of rallies and mobilizations, a local housing board was created that included representatives from the urban poor sector and NGOs assisting the urban poor. The local housing board prepared a comprehensive shelter plan for Cebu City. As a result of the effort, urban poor communities were provided the basic services they need. Demolitions and evictions cases in publicly owned lots were minimized and those subjected to demolitions and evictions were given relocation sites. As a result of working with the judges, a judge will now coordinate with the Local Housing Board before issuing an order for eviction involving privately owned lots. This makes it possible for the Local Housing Board to ensure compliance in cases of demolitions and evictions.

Human rights violations happen in many communities and areas where people are not aware of their rights. Often, marginalized sectors like the urban poor, lack access to justice and are deprived of meaningful participation in governance as well as plans for the development process of the country. Participation, training and empowerment of local leaders are key aspects in achieving a sustainable effort in community organizing processes.

Engaging key stakeholders to ensure the right to HIV/AIDS education and health care services

ahorwart — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:48:45 -0500

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.

Accompanying human rights activists to protect them from danger

Lrubenstein — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:48:27 -0500

Peace Brigades International (PBI) sends international observers to accompany human rights activists who are threatened by the government or paramilitary organizations. They serve as a reminder to perpetrators of human rights abuse that the international community is watching. In the event of an abduction, the observer alerts authorities in the country, their own native government and activists around the world. This brings the influence of the foreigner’s government and international contacts to bear on the perpetrators.

As a tactic, international accompaniment was developed to protect Guatemalan civil society activists in the early 1980s. At that time many activists were being watched, terrorized, and killed by agents working on behalf of the government. Over the next decade PBI and groups like them sent hundreds of international observers to Guatemala. Later, in 1987, PBI was invited by organizer Bishop Medardo Gomez to bring observers to El Salvador. In El Salvador, PBI was widely embraced and they were soon overwhelmed with requests for observers. Since then PBI has expanded. Peace Brigades now operates in Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, and Indonesia. Similar programs exist in other countries around the world.

International accompaniment is difficult for both human rights activists and volunteers. Activists can feel constrained by the continual presence of another person in their daily lives. For the volunteers, escorting involves constantly following someone else’s schedule, which is similarly constraining. In addition, accompaniment is stressful for both activists and volunteers due to the dangers they both face.

Although the volunteers are the most visible symbol of the accompaniment tactic, the success of the approach depends on an international awareness of the situation through an extensive support network of concerned individuals and supporting organizations. This network is ready to apply special pressure in crisis situations involving PBI volunteers and the people they are protecting. The grass-roots network consists of thousands of concerned individuals in many countries. It is activated when there is a need for broad based pressure. By using emails, faxes and letters sent to authorities in the country in which the crisis is occurring, the recipients are made aware that the eyes of the international community are upon them. In selective situations, PBI also uses a high-level alert network of influential political and diplomatic authorities when it wishes to apply potent pressure. These are people who have especially strong influence on the governmental authorities in the country concerned.

To coordinate the work of the volunteers doing the accompaniment and the extensive support network, each project has a Project Committee and a Project Office. The latter is usually located outside the project country for security reasons, and is staffed by a Project Coordinator and local volunteers.

While the effects of accompaniment, like any deterrent method, are hard to quantify, the impact of accompaniment in the minds of the citizens of a country was demonstrated with the return of Guatemalan refugees. The refugees, when negotiating their return with the Guatemalan government, insisted that the government sign an agreement approving the right of international accompaniment. The refugees’ successful return help inspire rapid developments in the Guatemalan peace process, contributing to the peace accords in 1996.

Using Popular Theater to Break the Silence Around Violence Against Women

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

By Oulimata Gaye

Download full notebook below.

In this notebook, Oulimata Gaye explains how she and her organization are breaking the wall of silence surrounding violence against women in Senegal, just as it is happening in numerous other countries and cultures. How are we to begin to "regulate" human rights problems when people will not talk about them? How are we to get people to talk? The tool that we use here is theatre. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, the plays engage the public, both literally and metaphorically, in familial situations. The public sees these situations set on stage and they also have the chance to play a role and to discuss what they saw. As a result, people begin to recognize abuse that they have wanted to hide or to silence: it is a first step to stopping this abuse.

What can be done so that people examine subjects they do not want to face? How can a cultural taboo that is not discussed, but from which numerous people are suffering, be overcome? Human Rights problems are, at times trendy – and the public can come to life and rally around a particular cause by which it’s affected. However, sometimes there are threats to human rights that remain concealed. We consider them given facts that are part of daily routine, that which is normal. These abuses are often the most difficult ones to address, because society refuses to consider them as authentic abuses. RADI, a human rights organization in Senegal, found a way to break this silence: using the people’s theater. Thanks to their years of experience in raising awareness about human rights issues for groups of women, RADI paralegals knew that conjugal and sexual violence against women were part of these disregarded abuses; a taboo subject about which even the victims themselves did not want to speak. This violence is justified as a "family problem", it is perceived as a male prerogative in a patriarchal society, where victims are convinced that it is they who are to blame – or that there is nothing wrong with the violence to which they are subject. And no one speaks nor doubts this state of things. Through a campaign that incorporates professional actors into groups of women in order to perform sketches on the theme, RADI succeeded in opening a public dialogue about violence against women in numerous communities. The women were themselves, invited to participate in the sketches, which gave them the opportunity to play roles side by side with well-known actors of the region. The sketches were both amusing and serious, breaking the silence surrounding this question. For the first time, communities were able to recognize the severity of this problem, its consequences from a human rights standpoint, and the search for solutions. People’s theater is a former method of political education. There is also street theater, union theater, political theater and many others. This practice had remarkable effects in terms of discrimination, war and peace, and all types of injustices. Each culture has a theatrical tradition – and many are those that think that one of theater’s principal functions is to stimulate the people’s political and social awareness. The traditional human rights movement is learning that in order to change behavior, it does not suffice simply to tell them what is wrong. It is necessary to touch the heart, through laughter and tears, so that they reflect upon that which seems "normal" to them in their society. In Senegal, RADI gives us an example of this strategy that is both practical and inspiring.

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