IN response to the idea that the human rights city being a life long journey - which it is and which I believe is SO fundamental to this project - this has also been one of our biggest challenges in Edmonton. People tend not to really understand that this project has longer term objectives and that human rights learning is a journey and immediate indicators are not always 'present'. Throughout the project, unfortunately we lost people committed to the project because there weren't enough 'tangible outcomes' right away. This was really disheartening ... I think it's important as cities move forward with this that they really stress this long term vision. It's critical - otherwise people miss the point!
I think you raise here a critical point in human rights work. People need to see some concrete results or victories. These don't even have to be big victories, in fact most of the time, they appear as small drops in an ocean of challenges. But having an opportunity to champion and see the ripples from the small drops is critical.
You had mentioned in another of your comments, the facilitation process and the development of relationships that have made it possible for people to know who they can refer a person they know is in need of assistance in their community. When that someone receives concrete assistance and connection to a service they need NOW - that is an immediate, heart-felt success, a tangible result.
One key point of our work is to improve the lives of people, of our communities - knowing that we have played a part in improving SOMEONE's life keeps us going.
Thank you for bringing this important aspect to our attention. Tangible outcomes help immensely in keeping us motivated for the long term endeavor.
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager
Thanks Nancy - and I think you hit it perfectly - the whole effort to try and have outcomes in Edmonton is a big reason why we pushed forward on the youth and human rights faciltiator training program that I spoke about in another thread. It has become a tangible 'project' that we are able to take to the community AND hte city and say here... we have trained so many people in human rights and this has been the effect. It's working for now... slowly!
In Rosario the Toba women came to the steering committee when
they needed 'help” to overcome the mistreatment in the hospitals.
A “theater the oppressed” put forth by these women was put
together to invitees – doctors and nurses form the hospital. They
came to see and listen because they were invited by the human rights
city's Steering committee. The “play” they saw on the stage,
presented the raw facts of how these women were treated. This
experience brought a meaningful change in policies and attitudes in
the hospital and also the development of ongoing learning bout human
rights as part of the Medical school's curriculum.
When young people in Ties, Senegal, learned that education is
a human right they asked why some of their friends do not go to
school. They found out that those children were not registered by
their parents when they were born. This was only the beginning of
teams of young 12- to 15 year olds who for more than three year
canvased the community of 250,00 and registered more than 4300
children. Along the registration process they got together lobbying
with the Mayor for more school rooms and more teachers . –
“small”stories – significant transformation in people's lives.
,
does this tell the story of the assertion of Nancy that: :
knowing that we have played a part in improving SOMEONE's life
keeps us going. .
These “someones” life experience is the best agent of change
and action.
Thank you for sharing these two great examples of effective use of tactics. I want to let people know that New Tactics hosted an on-line dialogue last October "Using Theatre for Human Rights Education and Action" . You will find many incredible examples of how effective theater is in engaging communities to identify important human rights issues, explore them and understand them, and work together to create their own solutions to take action. This is an excellent and powerful tool in building community human rights learning.
I was also struck by the story of the young people in Senegal taking action to register children who had not been registered at birth. A group of young people here in Minnesota are trying to explore this issue of birth registration and how it could help the children of Sudan. If people have other stories of how groups have worked on this issue - please visit this comment and share your own: Birth Registration in Southern Sudan
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager
Inspiring new ideas-- what is human rights as a way of life
Closing off after a long day allow me to put forth questions for
discussion over the weekend. :
--How do we create a collective consciousness about human rights
as a way of life?
--How do we have people internalize human rights as presenting a
moral authority that guides our lives,
for which we have no other option?.
--How can we create the environment where the two word “human
rights” evoke not only violations and conformation but an adherence
to a system of carefully developed norms and standards that guide us
to live in dignity with others.. --a powerful world view.. --a way of
life that transcends dogma and evokes transcendence and proactive
actions?
--what do we have to do and through which media and other forms of
communication can we have people understand human rights as relevant
to their daily lives and which stand to make their lives better. A
consciousness that puts in their hands a powerful tool for action. ?
Indeed we hope that the human rights cities provide answer to
these questions.
Let each one just re read the UDHR and learn how much e can
achieve by learning and re learning,. imagining and re imagining to
articulate without hesitation that human rights is a way of life..
As I read along the many very important and inspiring entries in
this dialogue I am not sure if we do not not unknowingly oscillate
between humanitarian affairs and human rights …
In a human rights city it is a call for economic and social
justice to be achieved within a human rights framework.
Are these mere words.. can someone help in walking the talk/??
There is no doubt that Pakistan is going through enormous difficulties, which often results in despotism, and lack of hope. However, it is absolutely imperative that you do not speak with your students as something that comes from the West, but something which is inherent both in their religious teachings and within the hopes and expectations of Pakistanis and other nations in your area for many generations. I believe that when students can find values, which indeed they can, in their own culture in their own narratives, and their own historic memory that relate to claiming ones dignity and moving away from humiliation that one can understand human rights as a tool for action in his or her community. This is why we speak of human rights as a way of life and Human Rights Learning as strengthening the banks of the river in which life and move freely.
These are not just poetic statements, but real experiences that we have gathered in Africa, and in Latin America and some in Asia. The yearning is to move away from humiliation but in this process we often humiliate others and exchange our equality for survival. And this is why we don't "educate" people. We learn together and in the learning process, we identify the strengths and hopes of our own culture, of our own religion, to design our future. This is why we came up with the idea of developing Human Rights Cities, which attempts to do all of the above and to create an aggregate consciousness, which gives power to human rights.
One major breakthrough for the human rights city process of Graz in Austria has been the election monitoring organized by the Human Rights Advisory Board set up in 2007. The 2008 municipal elections saw a strong xenophobic and islamophobic move by right wing parties. The slogan promoted by the Human Rights Board was "no campaign at the expense of human rights" and a working group with funding from the city documented all violations, while the Board held regular press conferences communicating its findings by way of a traffick light system, i.e. red, amber and green. The press showed much interest and soon citizens started to follow the monitoring process, which is believed to have prevented more violations of human rights of citizens, often migrants.
Thanks so much for sharing this example of the way in which a human rights city operates in action. It seems that so far initiatives have been successful in creating awareness as well as preventing violation of human rights in your human rights city (Graz).
I'd be really interested in hearing other examples of specific instances in which members of human rights cities, when faced with violations, took action in order to prevent those violations. I'd also be interested in hearing of ways in which members of human rights cities have drawn awareness to human rights within their own community.
One example of human rights in action here in DC was given to us by a group of young people who participated in our first human rights learning retreat. After learning about human rights, these young people agreed to take actions on three issues that were relevant to their lives as youths: education, immigration and non-violence.
The education group decided to raise awareness about the quality of schools in DC and went on to testify before the City Council. The immigration group organized a survey in their schools to study the perception of foreign born students by US born students and faculty. Their work is helping to foster dialogue among different ethnic groups in the school. The peace group went on top organize a "peace club" at their school, which is teaching the values of non-violence techniques in conflict resolution.
Thank you so much for your examples of actions that people are taking in human rights cities. Your examples will be really helpful to many I'm sure, and the idea of a human rights learning retreat sounds really interesting and helpful. I think it's really important to appeal to the youth population as a part of building a human rights community, and I think a retreat would be a really great way to foster a dialogue among youths about what matters most to them. Thank you for your insights, they were beneficial to me, and I'm sure will be to others as well!
Thank you for sharing this great example of how your human rights learning activity connected to direct action results that these young people were not only interested in but took steps to make a difference. I think this is the real crux of building human rights cities - where citizens (young and old alike) are invested in making the place where they live the best it can be for everyone.
Education learning (awareness of quality of schools) - became ACTION in testifying before the City Council
Immigration learning (survey about perceptions) - became ACTION with fostering dialogue among different ethnic groups in the school
Non-violence learning (non-violence values) - became ACTION with the establishment of a "peace club" to teach non-violence techniques in conflict resolution.
This is inspiring!
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager
The support we received from the D.C. Council and the local government's office of human rights was critical for our early success in securing the official resolution to proclaim Washington ,D.C. a human rights city.
Shula and I first met with the Director of the D.C. office of Human Rights and were able, apparently, to have him buy-in into the idea of human rights learning and a human rights city. At the same time, we have already started conducting human rights learning workshops to D.C. students. This idea of exposing human rights learning to D.C. students resonated very well with the Director, who immediately accepted our invitation to join the steering committee. In other words, the City's office of human rights became a co-owner, with other community organizations of the human rights city project.
The support from the City Council pretty much followed the same scheme. As I said in my comments yesterday, we were able to identify a key councilmember who has distinguished herself in the field of human rights in Washington. She also liked the concept of a human rights city and the the work we were already doing to introduce human rights learning to D.C. students. She became a strong advocate of the steering committee and she proved it when she drafted the resolution and received overwhelming support from the entire City Council ( they all signed the declaration!).
In summary, I think the key to securing support from the officials is in being able to convey a positive message to them about the uniqueness of the concept of human rights learning as a way of life, and human rights city as a way to empower communities to achieve self-realization and human dignity.
A regular report on the state of human rights is one of the main tasks of the Human Rights Board of the city of Graz.The first such report was elaborated in 2008 by a working group of the Board with the partcipation of the city administration, NGOs and individuals from all sectors. Three issues were given paricular attention, i.e.racism, islamophobia and poverty. The 80 page report which is available from the website of the ETC Graz at www.etc-graz.at provides a comprehensive account of the strengths and weaknesses, achievements and gaps and ends with a number of recommendations adopted by the Board, which met with considerable public interest. The second report due in 2009 will focus on the implementation of these recommendations. The challenge is to trigger a process in which the authorities will take ownership of the recommendations and the public, in particular the media will hold them accountable for implementing them. The Board may enter into a constructive dialogue offering assistance.
let us think together and join in planning and action...
Hello to all new and "old" participants.
On Friday at the end of busy day, at the UN , trying to create discussions on the importance of learning about human rights as a way both at the forth coming meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development and also meetings in May of the Indigenous Peoples , I dared to bring forth a question to all : How do we have people around the world join in learning and internalizing the notion of human rights as a way of life and as relevant to their daily lives?... this beyond the “conventional” way they “know” and identify what human rights are today.
I recalled thinking that human rights rebukes dogma an exclusivity and evokes transcendence and inclusivity.. .. this question was in search of how to appeal to people to embrace the human rights framework as their own and be guided by its holistic vision and mission.
I ask that you look on our home page www.pdhre.org : The Resolutions on the International Year of human Rights learning – especially the second one --having prompted Benin to put this forth- how the outlined suggestioncan be implemented so as to start of a worldwide process. We hope that it will lead to have 100 human rights cities flourishing in the coming 10 years as focal points and models from which we all learn how to use the human rights framework to change the world.
Each one of you who reads this conversation, being put forth by our network, and is inspired, will reach out and hold hands. Let us think together of how we can influence every community group, NGOs and organization those that attend to the major 30 social and economic justice issues – see our Call for Justice in our website- proposing to them to integrate the learning about human rights in their projects and programs and with their constituencies around the world -- all these issue are human rights issues.
It will indeed say loud and clear human rights is the right to be human.
Participatory Budgets can be an extraordinary tool to implement human rights in the daily life practice. But we need to push in order to make them really democratic and participatory. As Rosario "Human Rights City" we collaborated with the process training women that were participating in the neighbourhood assemblies. The fact was that women were in a disadvantege position regarding men, which had more experience in political participation and always took the floor and spoke on behalf of the whole community. In the workshops we discussed through different stages:
First: how to move from the "complaining" position to a more proactive one;
Second: analizing the way in which they enjoy their human rights, how they were violated, how they could be defended and promoted.
Third: Fixing priorities for your neighbourghood. This is not an easy task. The tendency is to make a shopping list, everybody adding a new item to the list. As the resources are limited, to discuss what is more urgent or important is crucial.
Fourth: To stand in public and take the floor is another step, very important in the process of building real democracy.
After the first year we work in this process, women decided that contraceptives in the health centers of the neighbourhoods and milk for the children in the schools were as vital as remedies for them, and so they asked for the neighbourghood budget to allocate money for that.
I agreed with Emiliano that this is still an imperfect tool, but is something. We need to improve it, trying to avoid governmental manipulation, asking for more popular participation and for the increasing of the percentage that could be decided by participation.
University cooperation does play a positive role in HRC Graz: for example, the university of Graz every year together with the Afro-Asian Institute of Graz is organizing a big multicultural ball with more than 3000 guests drawing attention to the multicultural population of Graz, this year also connected with a so-called multicultural academy focusing on freedom of expression worldwide. The universty also regularly awards a human rights prize, the last one of which went to the British organization Council for Assistance to Refugee Academics (CARA). The universitty closely coperates with the ETC, part of which will be formally established for research and training as a competence centre of the university. The university also participated in a project of the regional TV and radio stationof Styria called Facing Nations, by which a local painter painted large portraits of people from all nationalities living in Graz giving them a face , which were then displayed in an exhibition, by documenting their stories.
The Human Rights City of Graz on a bi-annual basis awards a human rights prize to people who show a particular human rights record in their activities in cities in Austria and Europe at large. Applications are to be sent to the "Friedensburo Graz" till beginning of September 2009, www.friedensbüro-graz.at. In this way every two years several activists are being distinguished in a nice ceremony allowing to reflect on the purpose and objectives of human rights cities. There is also some money connected to the prize which may be split in case of several people being awarded.
A particular concern of the Human Rights City of Graz is the fostering of the peaceful coexistence of all people within the local community.
The achievements that are submitted are assessed with regard to the advancement of tolerance, dialogue and reconciliation and their impact on local life in Graz and other European cities.
Applications will be accepted until September 30, 2009.
Keep us posted regarding the stories of success that get submitted and those that win the € 7,000 prize!
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager
What a very nice form of self-care - to recognize the great work of others! Though the outcomes of this work might not be immediate or tangible, I believe that it is important for practitioners to stop once in a while, and recognize their accomplishments. This is a wonderful example of that. Well done, Graz!
Kristin Antin, New Tactics Online Community Builder
A comparison of human rights cities is the subject of a TV film, turned by a crew of the Styrian/Austrian TV ORF, which has been shown for a first time during the UN Habitat conference in Nanking in late 2008. The human rights cities of Graz, Rosario, Edmonton and Korogocho/Kenia are juxtaposed in sometimes surprising cuts. The fim is available in English as a video from Michael Schaller, who had the idea and was part of the team travelling to the cities at www.menschenrechtsstadt.at
Abou About Budgets: About Budgets:I agree with Emiliano on what happens with the participatory budgets. In almost all cases they can decide on more less than 10% of the real budget. That is because the composition of the budget in an important part of a central national ore regional agencies and there are few important projects they can finance. So the real budget is very small. (specially in poor districts ). They have been useful in terms of moving people to think on what they want for there community. In my view the problem is no only budgets, but investments projects in the city, and in the case of Chile the decision of local investment frequently come from the national or regional level. For example the construction of roads comes from a centralized national regional decision. That means that at the local level people cannot decide, even though there are assemblies where people can express their opinion about the social, environmental impact. But there is a real power imbalance between local administrations and communities, enterprises and state agencies of other levels. So the main conflict- in Chile- is decentralization and decisions over projects that impact in people’s lives. There is one experience, that moves in the direction of HHRR Cities, that is in a district where the local administration opened not only the discussion to the people, but let them take decisions, so the people and the administration move the projects they are really interested, arguing at/with all levels. That kind of articulation, needs a great political will, that means that authorities believe in participation in public decisions, and let people’s power circulate. The problem is that it is subjected to the period that authorities are in power.
So in the developing of HHRR cities, methodologies for empowerment have to be addressed to authorities in order to distinguish what is instrumental participation and real decisions on relevant issues for the comunity. That means to share power/cooperate with organized comunity.
Graz as a human rights city is still facing major challenges. When we started in 2001 thanks to the encouragement of Shula Koenig, we successfully based ourselves on the methodology suggested by PDHRE to be found on their website, which is as relevant today than in the beginning. Step by step we were able to built a constituency and since 2007 we have the Human Rights Council as an official advisory board of the city. We have not yet achieved human rights budgeting, in times of economic crises we have to struggle to maintain our achievements. Still, since the beginning we are concentrating on human rights learning for all and recently we reached a new level, when the major agreed to invite all actors in the human rights learning community for a reception, where he will annpunce a three-year programme of the city under the name "culture of human rights in Graz", which will be coordinated by the Human Rights Council with the help of the European Training and Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (ETC). The concrete steps were elaborated by a special workshop and a working group will try to stimulate an as broad process as possible. Media and diferent professional associations will be involved together with university and civil society at large. We have only a minimal budget, so we will depend on inputs from all participants. Any suggestions or recommendations from viewers are welcome!
In response to our friend who asked why Washington D.C. is the only human rights city in the US, I would say that it depends on what the citizens of each city want to do to promote the idea. A human rights city is, in my view a bottom-up process. It depends on the actions taken by the citizens themselves to make their city a human rights city. Citizens will influence political leaders to declare their city a human rights city, not the opposite. In Washington DC, we seized the momentum around 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to start a city-wide process of engaging citizens in human rights learning. We conducted a survey of 89 D.C. public and private schools students. The results revealed that only 2 students knew about that historic document. The overwhelming majority never heard of the document. We then made a strategic decision to partner with the School District to expand human rights learning in their schools. With financial support from PDHRE, we organized a 3 day retreat for 30 students who then went on to create the first DC Youth Human Rights Steering Committee (please check our website at www.afsc.org/midatlantic , then look for DC Peace and Economic Justice Program) . Those students who received that first training went back to their schools and created human right clubs to engage other young people in human rights learning around three issues relevant to them including, education, immigration and peace. Students became our first advocates for a human rights city. This had a positive impact on the local officials in their decision to declare D.C. a human rights city in progress. We are doing the same at the community level where a Steering Committee made of members of more than 30 community organizations is also promoting human rights learning at the community level and engaging in actions for societal transformation( see http://sites.google.com/site/dchumanrightspeoplesmovement )
First please accept my
apologies for not particapting in this exciting forum . Work and
family committments have taken my time over the past few months.
In any event, I will sshare some of my thoughts on the Human
Rights Cities process and progress. Back in 2005 I
was honored to be asked to chair the Human Rights City Edmonton
Project. and to become part of this group. When I met our other
colleagues in Taiwan in Dec 2005 I was so excited to see
what people are doing around the world to further human rights
and human dignity for all. At that time I was the only
person form a "dveloped" country and I think some people
were surprsied to hear that Canada has human rights concerns .
Believe me, we have many human rights issues here and many
opportunities to improve the situation, but that what I
want to discuss here. I want to share a few things about our
process and my experience.
When I first agreed to chair our
committee--there were approx 60 indivuals who had been invited be
part of the " Steering committee". After discussions with
Satya Das, whom you all know, we agreed that we needed a
smaller commitee to actually make decisions and move
things along. So we formed a smaller group of approx 16 people at
first adn we soon founbd this was even too large--some people
would show up for meetings every week, other rarely, and when they did
they would expect a complete replay of previous meetings,
including revisiting and sometimes revising decisions that had
been made in their absence. Needless to say there seemed to be
some fairly large egos in the room at times. Some individuals
thought the HRC movement was a United Nations initiative and when they
found out it was independent of the UN they decided to withdraw from
the committee, others felt we weren't doing things fast enough, so in
time we were left with a few very dedicated people who continued
on. Thanks to Renee and her staff at the John Humphrey Centre, we
managed to develop some excellent initiatives, starting with a "needs
assessment" through an online survey asking people to describe
human rights issues in Edmonton. We changed the "Steering
Committee" to a "Citizen's Assemly" and the first Human Rights
Day event was held at the First Nations Centre where we held
focus groups with approx 45 citizens to identify our priorities. The
citizens also declared Edmonton a Human Rights City that day. One
priority identified was education and from that we developed the Human
Rights Facilitator Training program. We have held 3 very successful
traiing programs so far and the feedback has been very positive.
We also started a Human Rights Award Ceremony where, on Dec 10th,
individuals, organizations and business are awarded a human rights city
award for their work in the community.. Renee and her team have also
been doing considerable wotk with Youth.
Our biggest challenge
has been funding. Although the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human
Rights has been the facilitating NGO and provided support
throughout the progress of the HRC, they also have other obligations
and cannot always access funding for the Human Rights City project.
Therefore, we are in the process of seeking an alternative approach
with a project manager to oversee the HRC initiative.
And
as with most NGOs, it is a challenge to get individuals to
volunteer their time to meet each month and participate in
planning and carrying out activities. Everyone on our committee is
working fulltime and sometimes it is difficult to attend meetings.
For
me, involvement in the HRC movement has been very educational. I can't
look at any aspect of my life or my work without seeing it through a
human rights lens. In fact, I am developing a proposal to create a
Centre for Huamn Rights and Social Justice at Athabasca
University. Our university is an Open and Distancde
Education university, so the Centre and any course or program we offer
would be open to anyone around the world.
I welcome any thoughts on this inititiatve.
If
time permits, I will try to log back into this forum later today after
we have our Human Rights City Executive meeting this afternoon.
Thank you for sharing your experiences with building the Human Rights City of Edmonton since 2005.
I wanted to invite you to consider how we can connect your Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice at Athabasca University (as well as other academic institutions) to the New Tactics tactical success resources that provide students with real case studies of how activists have moved their issues forward and the many incredible human rights activists who are doing the work in their communities who make up our on-line community.
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager
Dear friends, colleagues, and those who took the time to ask, answer, and reflect,
Now that this exceptional week, enabled to us by New Tactics, comes to a close, allow me to first thank you for coming in our midst, for asking and answering, for giving some good advice, and most important, for willing to come farther along this journey with us. New Tactics is indeed a fantastic collaborator and I'm sure that many of you we only met on the screen, could join in collaborating, both in the International Year of Human Rights Learning and in initiating groups in your communities that will facilitate the development of Human Rights Cities.
Human Rights, indeed, is the right to be human. And it is to overcome the three 'P's: Power, Patriarchy and Politics. In the Human Rights Cities, people make the following pledge while holding hands:
We are the human rights generation!
We will take nothing less than human rights.
We will know them and claim them,
For all women, men, youth and children,
From all who speak human rights, but deny them to their own people.
(Raising our hands) We will move power to human rights!
There is an important opportunity created by the recent resolution for the International Year of Human Right Learning. In the operative part of the resolution A/RES/63/173, it says:
2. Urges Member States to develop throughout the International Year of
Human Rights Learning and beyond, in coordination with civil societ y, the private
sector, academia and parliamentarians and regional organizations, including the
appropriate specialized agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations
system, international strategies and/or regional, national and local programmes of
action aimed at broad-based and sustained human rights learning at all levels,
bearing in mind the complementary efforts undertaken within the framework of the
World Programme for Human Rights Education;2
3. Calls upon the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
and the Human Rights Council to support, cooperate and collaborate with civil
society, the private sector, academia, regional organizations and other relevant
stakeholders, as well as with organizations, programmes and funds of the United
Nations system, in efforts to develop, in particular, the design of international
strategies and/or regional, national and local programmes of action aimed at
broad-based and sustained human rights learning for all, including seminars and
workshops for community leaders, keeping in mind a long-term multi-year process
involving several countries in all regions;
The Human Rights Cities, current and future, will serve as models for the learning about human rights as a way of life. Needless to say, learning must lead to action--some of which was shared with you by our network. If you want to learn more, you can find it on our website http://www.pdhre.org/ and also in our recent book Human Rights Cities: Civic Engagement for Societal Development, which can also be found on our homepage.
Please feel free to write to us, always with a copy to Nancy Pearson, with whom we are going to work very closely.
This summer I plan to have my proposal completed and hopefully
approved by my Centre Chair. Once that first draft is complete I will
be in a position to share how we plan to move forward. If
this space continues to be abvailable, I will post our progree here.
If not, what is the appropriate forum to discuss this?
HI Nancy,
IN response to the idea that the human rights city being a life long journey - which it is and which I believe is SO fundamental to this project - this has also been one of our biggest challenges in Edmonton. People tend not to really understand that this project has longer term objectives and that human rights learning is a journey and immediate indicators are not always 'present'. Throughout the project, unfortunately we lost people committed to the project because there weren't enough 'tangible outcomes' right away. This was really disheartening ... I think it's important as cities move forward with this that they really stress this long term vision. It's critical - otherwise people miss the point!
Renee
Hi Renee,
I think you raise here a critical point in human rights work. People need to see some concrete results or victories. These don't even have to be big victories, in fact most of the time, they appear as small drops in an ocean of challenges. But having an opportunity to champion and see the ripples from the small drops is critical.
You had mentioned in another of your comments, the facilitation process and the development of relationships that have made it possible for people to know who they can refer a person they know is in need of assistance in their community. When that someone receives concrete assistance and connection to a service they need NOW - that is an immediate, heart-felt success, a tangible result.
One key point of our work is to improve the lives of people, of our communities - knowing that we have played a part in improving SOMEONE's life keeps us going.
Thank you for bringing this important aspect to our attention. Tangible outcomes help immensely in keeping us motivated for the long term endeavor.
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager
Thanks Nancy - and I think you hit it perfectly - the whole effort to try and have outcomes in Edmonton is a big reason why we pushed forward on the youth and human rights faciltiator training program that I spoke about in another thread. It has become a tangible 'project' that we are able to take to the community AND hte city and say here... we have trained so many people in human rights and this has been the effect. It's working for now... slowly!
In Rosario the Toba women came to the steering committee when
they needed 'help” to overcome the mistreatment in the hospitals.
A “theater the oppressed” put forth by these women was put
together to invitees – doctors and nurses form the hospital. They
came to see and listen because they were invited by the human rights
city's Steering committee. The “play” they saw on the stage,
presented the raw facts of how these women were treated. This
experience brought a meaningful change in policies and attitudes in
the hospital and also the development of ongoing learning bout human
rights as part of the Medical school's curriculum.
When young people in Ties, Senegal, learned that education is
a human right they asked why some of their friends do not go to
school. They found out that those children were not registered by
their parents when they were born. This was only the beginning of
teams of young 12- to 15 year olds who for more than three year
canvased the community of 250,00 and registered more than 4300
children. Along the registration process they got together lobbying
with the Mayor for more school rooms and more teachers . –
“small”stories – significant transformation in people's lives.
,
does this tell the story of the assertion of Nancy that: :
knowing that we have played a part in improving SOMEONE's life
keeps us going. .
These “someones” life experience is the best agent of change
and action.
Shula,
Thank you for sharing these two great examples of effective use of tactics. I want to let people know that New Tactics hosted an on-line dialogue last October "Using Theatre for Human Rights Education and Action" . You will find many incredible examples of how effective theater is in engaging communities to identify important human rights issues, explore them and understand them, and work together to create their own solutions to take action. This is an excellent and powerful tool in building community human rights learning.
I was also struck by the story of the young people in Senegal taking action to register children who had not been registered at birth. A group of young people here in Minnesota are trying to explore this issue of birth registration and how it could help the children of Sudan. If people have other stories of how groups have worked on this issue - please visit this comment and share your own: Birth Registration in Southern Sudan
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager
Closing off after a long day allow me to put forth questions for
discussion over the weekend. :
--How do we create a collective consciousness about human rights
as a way of life?
--How do we have people internalize human rights as presenting a
moral authority that guides our lives,
for which we have no other option?.
--How can we create the environment where the two word “human
rights” evoke not only violations and conformation but an adherence
to a system of carefully developed norms and standards that guide us
to live in dignity with others.. --a powerful world view.. --a way of
life that transcends dogma and evokes transcendence and proactive
actions?
--what do we have to do and through which media and other forms of
communication can we have people understand human rights as relevant
to their daily lives and which stand to make their lives better. A
consciousness that puts in their hands a powerful tool for action. ?
Indeed we hope that the human rights cities provide answer to
these questions.
Let each one just re read the UDHR and learn how much e can
achieve by learning and re learning,. imagining and re imagining to
articulate without hesitation that human rights is a way of life..
As I read along the many very important and inspiring entries in
this dialogue I am not sure if we do not not unknowingly oscillate
between humanitarian affairs and human rights …
In a human rights city it is a call for economic and social
justice to be achieved within a human rights framework.
Are these mere words.. can someone help in walking the talk/??
There is no doubt that Pakistan is going through enormous difficulties, which often results in despotism, and lack of hope. However, it is absolutely imperative that you do not speak with your students as something that comes from the West, but something which is inherent both in their religious teachings and within the hopes and expectations of Pakistanis and other nations in your area for many generations. I believe that when students can find values, which indeed they can, in their own culture in their own narratives, and their own historic memory that relate to claiming ones dignity and moving away from humiliation that one can understand human rights as a tool for action in his or her community. This is why we speak of human rights as a way of life and Human Rights Learning as strengthening the banks of the river in which life and move freely.
These are not just poetic statements, but real experiences that we have gathered in Africa, and in Latin America and some in Asia. The yearning is to move away from humiliation but in this process we often humiliate others and exchange our equality for survival. And this is why we don't "educate" people. We learn together and in the learning process, we identify the strengths and hopes of our own culture, of our own religion, to design our future. This is why we came up with the idea of developing Human Rights Cities, which attempts to do all of the above and to create an aggregate consciousness, which gives power to human rights.
One major breakthrough for the human rights city process of Graz in Austria has been the election monitoring organized by the Human Rights Advisory Board set up in 2007. The 2008 municipal elections saw a strong xenophobic and islamophobic move by right wing parties. The slogan promoted by the Human Rights Board was "no campaign at the expense of human rights" and a working group with funding from the city documented all violations, while the Board held regular press conferences communicating its findings by way of a traffick light system, i.e. red, amber and green. The press showed much interest and soon citizens started to follow the monitoring process, which is believed to have prevented more violations of human rights of citizens, often migrants.
Thanks so much for sharing this example of the way in which a human rights city operates in action. It seems that so far initiatives have been successful in creating awareness as well as preventing violation of human rights in your human rights city (Graz).
I'd be really interested in hearing other examples of specific instances in which members of human rights cities, when faced with violations, took action in order to prevent those violations. I'd also be interested in hearing of ways in which members of human rights cities have drawn awareness to human rights within their own community.
Hello from DC!
One example of human rights in action here in DC was given to us by a group of young people who participated in our first human rights learning retreat. After learning about human rights, these young people agreed to take actions on three issues that were relevant to their lives as youths: education, immigration and non-violence.
The education group decided to raise awareness about the quality of schools in DC and went on to testify before the City Council. The immigration group organized a survey in their schools to study the perception of foreign born students by US born students and faculty. Their work is helping to foster dialogue among different ethnic groups in the school. The peace group went on top organize a "peace club" at their school, which is teaching the values of non-violence techniques in conflict resolution.
Thank you so much for your examples of actions that people are taking in human rights cities. Your examples will be really helpful to many I'm sure, and the idea of a human rights learning retreat sounds really interesting and helpful. I think it's really important to appeal to the youth population as a part of building a human rights community, and I think a retreat would be a really great way to foster a dialogue among youths about what matters most to them. Thank you for your insights, they were beneficial to me, and I'm sure will be to others as well!
Jean-Louis,
Thank you for sharing this great example of how your human rights learning activity connected to direct action results that these young people were not only interested in but took steps to make a difference. I think this is the real crux of building human rights cities - where citizens (young and old alike) are invested in making the place where they live the best it can be for everyone.
This is inspiring!
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager
The support we received from the D.C. Council and the local government's office of human rights was critical for our early success in securing the official resolution to proclaim Washington ,D.C. a human rights city.
Shula and I first met with the Director of the D.C. office of Human Rights and were able, apparently, to have him buy-in into the idea of human rights learning and a human rights city. At the same time, we have already started conducting human rights learning workshops to D.C. students. This idea of exposing human rights learning to D.C. students resonated very well with the Director, who immediately accepted our invitation to join the steering committee. In other words, the City's office of human rights became a co-owner, with other community organizations of the human rights city project.
The support from the City Council pretty much followed the same scheme. As I said in my comments yesterday, we were able to identify a key councilmember who has distinguished herself in the field of human rights in Washington. She also liked the concept of a human rights city and the the work we were already doing to introduce human rights learning to D.C. students. She became a strong advocate of the steering committee and she proved it when she drafted the resolution and received overwhelming support from the entire City Council ( they all signed the declaration!).
In summary, I think the key to securing support from the officials is in being able to convey a positive message to them about the uniqueness of the concept of human rights learning as a way of life, and human rights city as a way to empower communities to achieve self-realization and human dignity.
Regards,
Jean-Louis
A regular report on the state of human rights is one of the main tasks of the Human Rights Board of the city of Graz.The first such report was elaborated in 2008 by a working group of the Board with the partcipation of the city administration, NGOs and individuals from all sectors. Three issues were given paricular attention, i.e.racism, islamophobia and poverty. The 80 page report which is available from the website of the ETC Graz at www.etc-graz.at provides a comprehensive account of the strengths and weaknesses, achievements and gaps and ends with a number of recommendations adopted by the Board, which met with considerable public interest. The second report due in 2009 will focus on the implementation of these recommendations. The challenge is to trigger a process in which the authorities will take ownership of the recommendations and the public, in particular the media will hold them accountable for implementing them. The Board may enter into a constructive dialogue offering assistance.
Hello to all new and "old" participants.
On Friday at the end of busy day, at the UN , trying to create discussions on the importance of learning about human rights as a way both at the forth coming meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development and also meetings in May of the Indigenous Peoples , I dared to bring forth a question to all : How do we have people around the world join in learning and internalizing the notion of human rights as a way of life and as relevant to their daily lives?... this beyond the “conventional” way they “know” and identify what human rights are today.
I recalled thinking that human rights rebukes dogma an exclusivity and evokes transcendence and inclusivity.. .. this question was in search of how to appeal to people to embrace the human rights framework as their own and be guided by its holistic vision and mission.
I ask that you look on our home page www.pdhre.org : The Resolutions on the International Year of human Rights learning – especially the second one --having prompted Benin to put this forth- how the outlined suggestioncan be implemented so as to start of a worldwide process. We hope that it will lead to have 100 human rights cities flourishing in the coming 10 years as focal points and models from which we all learn how to use the human rights framework to change the world.
Each one of you who reads this conversation, being put forth by our network, and is inspired, will reach out and hold hands. Let us think together of how we can influence every community group, NGOs and organization those that attend to the major 30 social and economic justice issues – see our Call for Justice in our website- proposing to them to integrate the learning about human rights in their projects and programs and with their constituencies around the world -- all these issue are human rights issues.
It will indeed say loud and clear human rights is the right to be human.
Documents:
of learning about human rights as a way of life at community level
I agree with you, Shula!
Susana Chiarotti
Participatory Budgets can be an extraordinary tool to implement human rights in the daily life practice. But we need to push in order to make them really democratic and participatory. As Rosario "Human Rights City" we collaborated with the process training women that were participating in the neighbourhood assemblies. The fact was that women were in a disadvantege position regarding men, which had more experience in political participation and always took the floor and spoke on behalf of the whole community. In the workshops we discussed through different stages:
After the first year we work in this process, women decided that contraceptives in the health centers of the neighbourhoods and milk for the children in the schools were as vital as remedies for them, and so they asked for the neighbourghood budget to allocate money for that.
I agreed with Emiliano that this is still an imperfect tool, but is something. We need to improve it, trying to avoid governmental manipulation, asking for more popular participation and for the increasing of the percentage that could be decided by participation.
University cooperation does play a positive role in HRC Graz: for example, the university of Graz every year together with the Afro-Asian Institute of Graz is organizing a big multicultural ball with more than 3000 guests drawing attention to the multicultural population of Graz, this year also connected with a so-called multicultural academy focusing on freedom of expression worldwide. The universty also regularly awards a human rights prize, the last one of which went to the British organization Council for Assistance to Refugee Academics (CARA). The universitty closely coperates with the ETC, part of which will be formally established for research and training as a competence centre of the university. The university also participated in a project of the regional TV and radio stationof Styria called Facing Nations, by which a local painter painted large portraits of people from all nationalities living in Graz giving them a face , which were then displayed in an exhibition, by documenting their stories.
The Human Rights City of Graz on a bi-annual basis awards a human rights prize to people who show a particular human rights record in their activities in cities in Austria and Europe at large. Applications are to be sent to the "Friedensburo Graz" till beginning of September 2009, www.friedensbüro-graz.at. In this way every two years several activists are being distinguished in a nice ceremony allowing to reflect on the purpose and objectives of human rights cities. There is also some money connected to the prize which may be split in case of several people being awarded.
This is a wonderful way to encourage communities to share their successes.
For those interested - here's a brief overview taken from the 2009 Gratz Human Rights Award Webpage:
Keep us posted regarding the stories of success that get submitted and those that win the € 7,000 prize!
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager
What a very nice form of self-care - to recognize the great work of others! Though the outcomes of this work might not be immediate or tangible, I believe that it is important for practitioners to stop once in a while, and recognize their accomplishments. This is a wonderful example of that. Well done, Graz!
Kristin Antin, New Tactics Online Community Builder
A comparison of human rights cities is the subject of a TV film, turned by a crew of the Styrian/Austrian TV ORF, which has been shown for a first time during the UN Habitat conference in Nanking in late 2008. The human rights cities of Graz, Rosario, Edmonton and Korogocho/Kenia are juxtaposed in sometimes surprising cuts. The fim is available in English as a video from Michael Schaller, who had the idea and was part of the team travelling to the cities at www.menschenrechtsstadt.at
Abou About Budgets: About Budgets:I agree with Emiliano on what happens with the participatory budgets. In almost all cases they can decide on more less than 10% of the real budget. That is because the composition of the budget in an important part of a central national ore regional agencies and there are few important projects they can finance. So the real budget is very small. (specially in poor districts ). They have been useful in terms of moving people to think on what they want for there community. In my view the problem is no only budgets, but investments projects in the city, and in the case of Chile the decision of local investment frequently come from the national or regional level. For example the construction of roads comes from a centralized national regional decision. That means that at the local level people cannot decide, even though there are assemblies where people can express their opinion about the social, environmental impact. But there is a real power imbalance between local administrations and communities, enterprises and state agencies of other levels. So the main conflict- in Chile- is decentralization and decisions over projects that impact in people’s lives. There is one experience, that moves in the direction of HHRR Cities, that is in a district where the local administration opened not only the discussion to the people, but let them take decisions, so the people and the administration move the projects they are really interested, arguing at/with all levels. That kind of articulation, needs a great political will, that means that authorities believe in participation in public decisions, and let people’s power circulate. The problem is that it is subjected to the period that authorities are in power.
So in the developing of HHRR cities, methodologies for empowerment have to be addressed to authorities in order to distinguish what is instrumental participation and real decisions on relevant issues for the comunity. That means to share power/cooperate with organized comunity.
Graz as a human rights city is still facing major challenges. When we started in 2001 thanks to the encouragement of Shula Koenig, we successfully based ourselves on the methodology suggested by PDHRE to be found on their website, which is as relevant today than in the beginning. Step by step we were able to built a constituency and since 2007 we have the Human Rights Council as an official advisory board of the city. We have not yet achieved human rights budgeting, in times of economic crises we have to struggle to maintain our achievements. Still, since the beginning we are concentrating on human rights learning for all and recently we reached a new level, when the major agreed to invite all actors in the human rights learning community for a reception, where he will annpunce a three-year programme of the city under the name "culture of human rights in Graz", which will be coordinated by the Human Rights Council with the help of the European Training and Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (ETC). The concrete steps were elaborated by a special workshop and a working group will try to stimulate an as broad process as possible. Media and diferent professional associations will be involved together with university and civil society at large. We have only a minimal budget, so we will depend on inputs from all participants. Any suggestions or recommendations from viewers are welcome!
In response to our friend who asked why Washington D.C. is the only human rights city in the US, I would say that it depends on what the citizens of each city want to do to promote the idea. A human rights city is, in my view a bottom-up process. It depends on the actions taken by the citizens themselves to make their city a human rights city. Citizens will influence political leaders to declare their city a human rights city, not the opposite. In Washington DC, we seized the momentum around 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to start a city-wide process of engaging citizens in human rights learning. We conducted a survey of 89 D.C. public and private schools students. The results revealed that only 2 students knew about that historic document. The overwhelming majority never heard of the document. We then made a strategic decision to partner with the School District to expand human rights learning in their schools. With financial support from PDHRE, we organized a 3 day retreat for 30 students who then went on to create the first DC Youth Human Rights Steering Committee (please check our website at www.afsc.org/midatlantic , then look for DC Peace and Economic Justice Program) . Those students who received that first training went back to their schools and created human right clubs to engage other young people in human rights learning around three issues relevant to them including, education, immigration and peace. Students became our first advocates for a human rights city. This had a positive impact on the local officials in their decision to declare D.C. a human rights city in progress. We are doing the same at the community level where a Steering Committee made of members of more than 30 community organizations is also promoting human rights learning at the community level and engaging in actions for societal transformation( see http://sites.google.com/site/dchumanrightspeoplesmovement )
Related documents:
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
First please accept my
apologies for not particapting in this exciting forum . Work and
family committments have taken my time over the past few months.
In any event, I will sshare some of my thoughts on the Human
Rights Cities process and progress. Back in 2005 I
was honored to be asked to chair the Human Rights City Edmonton
Project. and to become part of this group. When I met our other
colleagues in Taiwan in Dec 2005 I was so excited to see
what people are doing around the world to further human rights
and human dignity for all. At that time I was the only
person form a "dveloped" country and I think some people
were surprsied to hear that Canada has human rights concerns .
Believe me, we have many human rights issues here and many
opportunities to improve the situation, but that what I
want to discuss here. I want to share a few things about our
process and my experience.
When I first agreed to chair our
committee--there were approx 60 indivuals who had been invited be
part of the " Steering committee". After discussions with
Satya Das, whom you all know, we agreed that we needed a
smaller commitee to actually make decisions and move
things along. So we formed a smaller group of approx 16 people at
first adn we soon founbd this was even too large--some people
would show up for meetings every week, other rarely, and when they did
they would expect a complete replay of previous meetings,
including revisiting and sometimes revising decisions that had
been made in their absence. Needless to say there seemed to be
some fairly large egos in the room at times. Some individuals
thought the HRC movement was a United Nations initiative and when they
found out it was independent of the UN they decided to withdraw from
the committee, others felt we weren't doing things fast enough, so in
time we were left with a few very dedicated people who continued
on. Thanks to Renee and her staff at the John Humphrey Centre, we
managed to develop some excellent initiatives, starting with a "needs
assessment" through an online survey asking people to describe
human rights issues in Edmonton. We changed the "Steering
Committee" to a "Citizen's Assemly" and the first Human Rights
Day event was held at the First Nations Centre where we held
focus groups with approx 45 citizens to identify our priorities. The
citizens also declared Edmonton a Human Rights City that day. One
priority identified was education and from that we developed the Human
Rights Facilitator Training program. We have held 3 very successful
traiing programs so far and the feedback has been very positive.
We also started a Human Rights Award Ceremony where, on Dec 10th,
individuals, organizations and business are awarded a human rights city
award for their work in the community.. Renee and her team have also
been doing considerable wotk with Youth.
Our biggest challenge
has been funding. Although the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human
Rights has been the facilitating NGO and provided support
throughout the progress of the HRC, they also have other obligations
and cannot always access funding for the Human Rights City project.
Therefore, we are in the process of seeking an alternative approach
with a project manager to oversee the HRC initiative.
And
as with most NGOs, it is a challenge to get individuals to
volunteer their time to meet each month and participate in
planning and carrying out activities. Everyone on our committee is
working fulltime and sometimes it is difficult to attend meetings.
For
me, involvement in the HRC movement has been very educational. I can't
look at any aspect of my life or my work without seeing it through a
human rights lens. In fact, I am developing a proposal to create a
Centre for Huamn Rights and Social Justice at Athabasca
University. Our university is an Open and Distancde
Education university, so the Centre and any course or program we offer
would be open to anyone around the world.
I welcome any thoughts on this inititiatve.
If
time permits, I will try to log back into this forum later today after
we have our Human Rights City Executive meeting this afternoon.
Regards,
Joy
Joy,
Thank you for sharing your experiences with building the Human Rights City of Edmonton since 2005.
I wanted to invite you to consider how we can connect your Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice at Athabasca University (as well as other academic institutions) to the New Tactics tactical success resources that provide students with real case studies of how activists have moved their issues forward and the many incredible human rights activists who are doing the work in their communities who make up our on-line community.
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager
Dear friends, colleagues, and those who took the time to ask, answer, and reflect,
Now that this exceptional week, enabled to us by New Tactics, comes to a close, allow me to first thank you for coming in our midst, for asking and answering, for giving some good advice, and most important, for willing to come farther along this journey with us. New Tactics is indeed a fantastic collaborator and I'm sure that many of you we only met on the screen, could join in collaborating, both in the International Year of Human Rights Learning and in initiating groups in your communities that will facilitate the development of Human Rights Cities.
Human Rights, indeed, is the right to be human. And it is to overcome the three 'P's: Power, Patriarchy and Politics. In the Human Rights Cities, people make the following pledge while holding hands:
We are the human rights generation!
We will take nothing less than human rights.
We will know them and claim them,
For all women, men, youth and children,
From all who speak human rights, but deny them to their own people.
(Raising our hands) We will move power to human rights!
There is an important opportunity created by the recent resolution for the International Year of Human Right Learning. In the operative part of the resolution A/RES/63/173, it says:
2. Urges Member States to develop throughout the International Year of
Human Rights Learning and beyond, in coordination with civil societ y, the private
sector, academia and parliamentarians and regional organizations, including the
appropriate specialized agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations
system, international strategies and/or regional, national and local programmes of
action aimed at broad-based and sustained human rights learning at all levels,
bearing in mind the complementary efforts undertaken within the framework of the
World Programme for Human Rights Education;2
3. Calls upon the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
and the Human Rights Council to support, cooperate and collaborate with civil
society, the private sector, academia, regional organizations and other relevant
stakeholders, as well as with organizations, programmes and funds of the United
Nations system, in efforts to develop, in particular, the design of international
strategies and/or regional, national and local programmes of action aimed at
broad-based and sustained human rights learning for all, including seminars and
workshops for community leaders, keeping in mind a long-term multi-year process
involving several countries in all regions;
The Human Rights Cities, current and future, will serve as models for the learning about human rights as a way of life. Needless to say, learning must lead to action--some of which was shared with you by our network. If you want to learn more, you can find it on our website http://www.pdhre.org/ and also in our recent book Human Rights Cities: Civic Engagement for Societal Development, which can also be found on our homepage.
Please feel free to write to us, always with a copy to Nancy Pearson, with whom we are going to work very closely.
Thank you again.
With all best wishes and gratitude,
Shula Koenig
This summer I plan to have my proposal completed and hopefully
approved by my Centre Chair. Once that first draft is complete I will
be in a position to share how we plan to move forward. If
this space continues to be abvailable, I will post our progree here.
If not, what is the appropriate forum to discuss this?
Joy
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