Activities 2007-2008
In June 2007, Equalinrights initiated an online discussion series with practitioners in our network to exchange experiences and expertise on advancing HRBD. Practitioners from different continents and backgrounds gathered online for one-day debates on a variety of issues.
Equalinrights worked with a number of community actors and civil society organizations (CSOs) in East Africa to support their use of participatory, human rights-based methodologies and tools, deepening understanding of human rights, citizenship and accountability.
Equalinrights is a member of the Human Dignity and Human Rights Caucus, a flexible coalition working to ensure human rights issues and values receive due attention within the WSF. Equalinrights held a number of events in Nairobi, Kenya for WSF 2007 and contributed to the WSF 2008 Global Day of Action and organised side-event at WSF 2009 in Belem do Para, Brazil! Read more about Equalinrights' contributions to wsf 2009, WSF 2008 and WSF 2007.
In early 2006, Equalinrights was commissioned by the Justice and Peace Commission of the Netherlands to develop an advocacy and research resource centre to advance the cause of the Dalit communities and others discriminated against on grounds of descent. This project was designed to redress the gap in systematically and scientifically gathered data on descent-based discrimination.
In collaboration with FoodFirst Action and Information Network (FIAN Netherlands), Equalinrights organised a workshop in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on how the Right to Food can be made more practical, with use of the Voluntary Guidelines as a tool for mobilisation. Flavio Valente, Secretary General of FIAN International and former National Rapporteur on the Right to Food in Brazil, shared his experiences on 7 June 2007.
November 2006-February 2007: Equalinrights, with Oxfam-Novib Nairobi, raised funds for and organised a process to support exploration of the meaning, relevance and potential use of HRBD in Somalia/land. It sought to do this in a more engaged and active way through a powerful and creative rights-based tool of empowerment and mobilisation, i.e., participatory video-making (PV).
Equalinrights hosted an exchange with the Programme on Women‘s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (PWESCR) on civil society coalitions developing and using parallel reports to United Nations Treaty monitoring bodies. The exchange was held in The Hague (The Netherlands) on Wednesday, 14 May 2008. Priiti and Gurinder shared their experiences, having just returned from presenting a report to the International Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, developed in a coalition with over 150 other organisations, on the situation of ESC rights in India. It was an inspiring exchange, with lively discussions on working with such a sizeable coalition, engaging with the government, how to use these processes for national advocacy and where to go from here.
During its first two years (2006-2007), a major initiative of Equalinrights was to create a database of resource persons on human rights-based development (HRBD). This database was a response to a significant gap in knowledge and understanding of HRBD. It created a cross-disciplinary pool of resource persons centred on understanding and applying holistic human rights-based approaches in development work. Specific areas of expertise include: gender specific strategies, ESC rights activism, human rights-based programming, using international and national human rights standards and mechanisms, social mobilisation, conflict transformation and organisational development. Equalinrights' current work on stregthening a Network of Practitioners on HRBD builds on the database initiative.
Making Rights Real
October 2007: Equalinrights organised an interactive event entitled 'Making Rights Real: Strategies and tools for realising human rights-based development' for more than 35 human rights and development practitioners at the University of Utrecht. The event aimed to highlight current pressing challenges to implementing human rights-based development (HRBD), deepen participants‘ understanding of one another‘s work and explore opportunities for building greater collaboration.The daylong exchange included two case studies on the power of upstream, citizen-driven initiatives for change and a participatory theatre exercise during which participants used images to express current realities about development and convey visions for a better future. During the afternoon portion of the programme, participants broke into working groups to explore local, national and international level challenges and strategies for strengthening HRBD. Key themes that emerged from the day included the importance of starting from local priorities and knowledge, a call for greater integration of human rights and development work, and the need for more accountability of all development actors, including NGOs. Read the event report!
