Struggles and Strategies of HRBD in Fragile States: Somalia/land
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).
Participatory Video as a tool for social inclusion
PV is a set of techniques to involve a group in shaping and creating their own film. It provides a powerful means of documenting local people's experiences, needs and hopes from their own perspectives. It can enable communities to solve their own problems and effectively communicate their needs and ideas to decision-makers and/or others holding power over resources to renegotiate and press for realisation of their human rights. As such, PV can be a great tool to engage and mobilise marginalised people and to help them implement their own forms of sustainable development. Exploration and use of such participatory tools is central to equalinrights work and a core part of engaging upstream human rights action for change.
The first phase was completed in early December 2006 with an eight day training of 15 people from different parts of Somaliland and Somalia in Hargeisa, to explore, learn and exchange experiences on prominent local issues in human rights and development. In particular, the workshop sought to deepen understanding of human rights-based; promote reflection on what HRBD means in their context and identify particular challenges they confront in implementation. It also developed participants’ capacity to engage with PV in their work with communities. It included a 2-day field work component where participants themselves taught others to create their own videos to tell their stories as a tool to raise awareness and advocate for their equal rights. This was particularly powerful component where we all saw, not only how capable, but how powerful others were in raising their voices. The main facilitator, Samuel Musyoki (Institute of Development Studies), supported by James Nduko (Oxfam Novib Nairobi) and the equalinrights Coordinator did a great job ensuring a participatory and action-oriented workshop, effectively combining concept and practice.
From this event, we drafted a preliminary guideline for use of PV in Somalia/land in Somali and English.
World Social Forum (WSF)
This process was built on as the participants developed participatory videos with communities that they work with around critical focus human rights issues identified. The PVs developed in 2006 formed the starting point of discussions at a series of events at the World Social Forum in Nairobi, January 2007. A delegation of 16 Somali representatives presented PV's at the WSF during organised events with the following themes:
- "The missing rights of the unspoken!! Human rights, conflict, militarization and impunity in Somalia"
- "Minority exclusion in Somaliland"
- "Children victims of violence"
During these events, the delegation was able to exchange experiences with organisations with similar struggles.Case studies are being documented that capture some of these experiences.For a report of the events, see our WSF page.
Follow-up
Participants acknowledged that the video bore a powerful message that had not been presented in video form in Somaliland before. It would raise debates on issues that are often not discussed openly in their communities. Since the video is also entertaining, this would be an important window of opportunity to stimulate specific debates on the issues it covers.
Plans are being developed for broadcasting the videos on television; aslo the organisation of seminars and debates with other NGOs and authorities are considered. An evaluation with all participants will shortly be conducted. This process was aonly able to start a preliminary exploratino of how human rights-based strategies can be applied in the context of Somalia/land. Discussions are planned to look at how this can be deepened in the next stage.
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