The Centre for Budget Advocacy (CBA) is a program operated by the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) in Ghana. ISODEC works in a variety of advocacy areas to improve the lives and livelihoods of Ghanaians.  As part of ISODEC’s Social Justice and Rights Programme, the Centre for Budget Advocacy examines how national and local budgets impact the human rights of Ghanaians, particularly the poor and vulnerable, and seeks to influence these budgets and the general allocation of public resources for the benefit of disadvantaged groups in the country. The CBA views access to necessities such as food, shelter, and potable water, and to basic social services such as education and health, as rights to which every citizen should be assured.  After examining budgets within a framework of human rights, the CBA uses workshops, public forums, and the media to disseminate its proposals and to engage others in discussions of budgetary policy.

The Black Box Foundation was founded in 1997 to address long-standing prejudice in Hungary and Romania toward the Roma minority, a group of people previously having no medium through which to address the prejudice they faced and help others learn about their culture. The Foundation uses television to help the Roma reach out to members of their communities; it trains five-person teams—comprised of Hungarians, Roma, and Romanians—in video production, provides them with equipment, and secures monthly airtime on local television stations for their programs. Team members obtain funding for their productions, and serve as writers, editors, directors, and production staff.

Tactic Information

Intervention type: 

Building Human Rights Cultures and Institutions - Building capacity

Objective: 

to address long-standing prejudice in Hungary and Romania toward the Roma minority

Sector initiating tactic: 

Civil society

Sector intended to affect: 

Civil society

WITNESS empowers human rights organizations around the world to incorporate video as an advocacy tool in their work. Rooted in the power of personal testimonies and in the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words, WITNESS and its partners’ videos have been used

Tactic Information

Intervention type: 

Building Human Rights Cultures and Institutions - Building capacity

Objective: 

To strengthen grassroots movements for change by training them to create and use video evidence before courts and the United Nations

Sector initiating tactic: 

Civil society

Sector intended to affect: 

Civil society

Tactic Information

Intervention type: 

Prevention Tactics - Removing opportunities for abuse

Objective: 

To honor cultural traditions without sacrificing the girl's rights to health and economic opportunity.

Sector initiating tactic: 

Civil society

Sector intended to affect: 

Civil society

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

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

The Centre for Victims of Torture (CVICT) in Nepal created a process of community mediation as an alternative to the criminal justice system. CVICT did research on what types of disputes were occurring, then developed a training course for community leaders, including women and Dalits (of the untouchable caste), on settling disputes with a rights-based community mediation method. Community mediation would be available for disputes other than violent crimes, and would be made available to everyone, regardless of age, sex, class, or social caste.  The mediation system is improving access to justice and the dynamics of power in the three districts where it has been carried out.  It is also greatly reducing the number of arrests: In the first year, two-thirds of cases were resolved through mediation while one-third went to the police and the courts.

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/AccesstoJustice">Access to Justice: Creating local level, citizen action mediation bodies to ensure human rights</a></b> by Dinesh Narayan Suddhakar.

Tactic Information

Intervention type: 

Prevention Tactics - Removing opportunities for abuse

Objective: 

To circumvent the problem of police abuse through a process of rights-based community mediation

Sector initiating tactic: 

Civil society

Sector intended to affect: 

Civil society