#rightfactor
Start date: May 1, 2016,
End date: Sep 30, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
Our training course, #rightfactor, results from the quests/needs and interest of many participants, youth workers, NGO staff, that we noticed from other programs/projects/actions that we carried out, on the difficulty to mainstream human rights within their work and to assess if they were inclusive or not.Confronted many times with the mentioned questions, we thought that the best way to address these issues would be to teach, mainly through non-formal methods, the underlying legal concepts and logics behind human rights. We believe that bringing formal and abstract concepts from legal instruments and showing how they operate in practice/how they are interpreted not only shows that human rights are operative and can be safeguarded through a wide range of means but can also provide clear guidelines in order to build more inclusive and human rights friendly NGOs, responding efficiently to those needs. Moreover, this favours a better understatement of legal language and interpretation contributing to a more effective and knowledgeable approach when working on the NGO statutes and policies, which are the first steps towards inclusiveness. Thus, #rightfactor will bring together 33 participants coming from 14 different countries; Malta, Portugal, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine, Armenia, Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt, Serbia, Netherlands, Greece, Lithuania and Romania for an 8 day training course (including travel days) hosted in Malta between the 4 - 11 July 2016. The main goals of our training course are to give a detailed overview of the human rights systems and dynamics, highlighting the human rights which have a direct emphasis on inclusion practices (right to equal treatment and freedom of religion and opinion amongst others), and how these rights apply in practice, using case law examples (therefore real life cases) through dynamic approaches, and using non-formal methods of education, such as simulation exercises, workshops, role-plays, site-visits and discussions. All this has, within its background, the website that we will create and that will work as a reference centre for inclusiveness and human rights compliance guidance for NGOs. The Action plans elaborated in the training course and its follow-up and implementation will be reported and uploaded into the website. This will allow for the participants to provide feedback but also for them to require our assistance if they face challenges within this implementation. On the other hand, it will be possible for NGOs from all over the world to access all this content, contributing strongly for dissemination and best practices sharing and exchange of experiences. Since one of the trainers (Portugal) has an academic background, and work as academic researcher in the fields of EU law, human rights, and civic participation, a study will also be carried out during the training, favouring a scientific approach to the topics which will also be shared through the website.The results that we expect are the following: to equip the participants with various tools to understand and operate well different human rights legal instruments and concepts, to make them familiar with the legal language and concepts and make clear that a better understatement of human rights, especially the ways in which they work in practice, are beneficial for the NGO as a whole. The participants will be able to envisage more inclusive statutes and policies and influence all the persons and institutions they work with. This will also favour self-confidence and a more proactive attitude towards defending their own human rights, making them active in their community. By showing, through the dynamic and non-formal approach of case-law, how this type of rights are present, in obvious and less obvious aspects of our life, we will promote awareness towards the benefits of inclusive policies and therefore more committed and efficient NGO work. We believe this will translate into a very big impact on the participants communities and sphere of work. Since the follow up/dissemnination aspect of this training course, through the development of a specific visual identity, the website and its contents, is also a main feature of this training course we believe that the potential longer terms benefits are unquestionable for all the persons interested in inclusiveness and human rights compliance.