Equalinrights activities at the World Social Forum: come and participate!
Equalinrights will participate in the World Social Forum in Nairobi within the context of the Human Dignity and Human Rights Caucus. Next to the specific events listed below, equalinrights will support relevant HDHR Caucus events in the main stage. We invite all interested to come and participate! For more information, questions or remarks, please send an email to info@equalinrights.org.
1. The power of power analysis:
A how-to workshop for all in effective human rights-based advocacy
Organisation: equalinrights, Just Associates
Format: Participatory workshop
Description: This workshop will engage you in a deeper understanding of power relationships and structures that impact your life and that of the community you work with. It will provide practical support on how to identify the different levels of power and devise action plans for realistic and strategic change to transform these relationships for greater equality, justice and voice for all. This will be framed within human rights-based analysis, in a very active and practical manner that will facilitate learning of participants in group work.
2. The struggles and strategies of rights-based development in failed states: Somalia
Organisation: equalinrights, Oxfam Novib Nairobi Office, Peace and Human Rights Centre (PHRN), Coalition of Grassroots Women Organisations (COGWO), ISHA Human Rights Organisation, The Centre for Research and Dialogue (CRD), NAGAAD
Format: Debate, participatory documentaries, exploration of case studies
Description: This event will explore what kind of human rights-based strategies communities, NGOs and international organisations can employ when there is no effective government or state systems operating in a country. How can they act most effectively to secure respect for human rights? The starting point for this event will consist of four stories developed through participatory video in Somalia. Questions around human rights-based strategies, accountability, power relationships and political space will be discussed together with the participants. This event will seek to catalyse a process of support to those working in a failed state environment in order to try to overcome the hurdles that exist.
3. Human rights and the struggle for gender equity: Confronting structural violence against women
Organisation: Gender Equity Coalition (ICCO, ECAOR, equalinrights)
Format: Tribunal/Seminar
Description: This seminar will be a multimedia tribunal-type event where a panel of three experts will hear two cases of structural violence against women: one focused on social and economic exclusion and the other on sexual gender-based violence. While each case will be grounded in the particularities of its geographical setting, the presenter will highlight its connections with global patterns of women’s human rights violations. Panelists will then offer legal, political, institutional, economic, social, cultural and grassroots perspectives on the violations and strategies for confronting them. Audience members will be invited to share their experiences as well. A debate on possible strategies to overcome obstacles and deep-seated discriminatory mindsets will conclude the session. The seminar will be followed by workshops and activities focusing on specific issues within the human rights and gender equity theme. The emphasis for the seminar and subsequent workshops is to move beyond discussion and identify strategies for change.
4. Human rights, universality and culture
Organisation: equalinrights, Aprodev Rights and Development Group, LWF-DWS, CoS
Format: Workshop/Panel discussion
Description: This workshop will concentrate on exploring the tensions between tradition, culture and practice, and human rights, focusing on the concept of universality. Are human rights and the adoption of human rights-based strategies a Northern imposition on the South, threatening and undervaluing local traditions and structures? Viewpoints from all sides will be adressed, through a dialogue on aspects influencing the understanding of universality and different cultures. Finally, we will address the core question: how to develop a culture of human rights which is sensitive to local realities, but at the same time upholds the dignity of all human beings, irrespective of cultural background?
5. Come and join us in building a human rights city!
Organisation: PDHRE, equalinrights
Format: Participatory theatre, workshop
Description: This event, initiated by PDHRE, is a workshop on societal development through human rights learning. Starting with picturing a human rights city through participatory theatre, the discussion about human rights learning will be set off. Participants are asked to get actively involved in theatre, debates and follow-ups on human rights tools, the concept of a human rights city and learning processes. This unique event will bring representatives from human rights cities from all over the world to the World Social Forum, aiming to start off a process on most effective and practical ways of human rights learning.