Rhoda' Graduation
Sharon's stand at the 5th World Youth Congress
Jitman receiving the Global Citizen Karamveer Purasker prize
Fellowship Success Stories - January 2011
Rhoda writes from Sierra Leone:
This photo was taken the day I received my Bachelor of Arts Degree in Peace and Conflict Studies in Sierra Leone. In the photo, I am receiving an award for the Best Social Student, based on my work in coordinating field work for my fellow students, and supporting the Stepping Stone Project for war amputees and polio victims. I’m involved in monitoring youth at risk for the project, and still help some of them on an ongoing basis with advice on setting up their own income generation business, and how to access skills training.
I’ve also encouraged my fellow students to think about women’s rights, including by writing and performing in a skit about women in politics.
Ever since I came back from the UK, I have been particularly interested in social and economic rights, and I am now working with a new organization called the Mustard Seed Foundation, which empowers people through education and micro enterprise develop. We provide scholarships to children and give loans to women so they can engage in small businesses.
must confess that I have been greatly motivated by the Centre for Applied Human Rights in a way that has influenced me to continue helping people in need not only in Sierra Leone but the world as a whole.
Sharon from Zimbabwe reports:
After the fellowship I was asked to be a dignity ambassador for Amnesty International. Through the work I was doing in trying to teach human rights to children, especially those affected by HIV, I came together with four other Zimbabwean human rights activists and we have founded Zimbabwe Youth For Development. This is an organization which provides access to educational material through community centers in rural Zimbabwe. We provide text books, internet access, volunteer teachers, learning aids in the form of specially made DVDs to address child and women's issues in the vernacular, sexual health education material, adult education software and human rights education, all based on the African Charter.
We are currently in discussions with young Scottish parliamentarians and an Austrian schools trust to partner with schools in the formers' constituencies and schools in Vienna to start a pen pal system that will encourage cultural exchange and open the users of the community centre to the outside world. We have been able to establish our first center in Churumhanzu in Central Zimbabwe.
In August we were fortunate to be able to take our project though in its infancy to the 5th World Youth Congress and ran a five-day exhibition showcasing the project. The support we got was overwhelming and has opened many doors for us.
I am the Media Manager and Sexual Health coordinator for the organisation. A lot of my work involves communication with people from different levels in society and that I know I would not have been able to do had it not been for CAHR. A lot of the lessons I had in York are paying off enormously. The workshops I attended are a treasured bonus and the contacts made whilst in the UK are proving to be a huge help.
Amir
My organisation is part of a network of 58 organisations in Iraq. In the last three months, this network has established a new department in the University of Baghdad focusing on human rights. We've held 34 workships in Iraq and beyond focusing on local government elections, and raising awareness about international and Iraqi electoral law. We organised a special workshop for Iraqi women elected to local government to help them to work with local NGOs to improve the human right situation. All these activities were inspired by what I learnt during my time in York".
Jitman
During my fellowship in York, I designed a Mobile School of Human Rights, which my organisation, the Lawyers' forum for Human Rights is intending to establish in the remote countrysice of Nepal. This will involve bringing lawyers to rural areas to provide education in Nepalese law and Human Rights.
CAHR would like to congratulate former Fellow Jitman Basnet from Nepal, who in November 2009 was awarded the Global Citizen Karamveer Puraskar prize by the India Confederation of NGOs (ICONGO) for his efforts to denounce torture in Nepal. This prize is given to socially responsible and caring citizens who aim to right wrongs by being drivers of change. (Source: Himalayan News Service).
Mahendra
Along with my trade union, we have set up a monitoring programme that focuses on the economic and social rights of workers, in particular the right to form a union and health and safety in the workplace. I am also developing a human rights curriculum for high school stucents, which I started while in York.
Saifora
As a result of my time in York, I have been able to make contact with many donors to raise funding for the work of my organisation, which is the only network of women's NGOs in Afghanistan. In particular, I have secured donor support for a three-year programme of work based on UN Security Council resolution 1325. We ensure that relevant organisations know about this resolution, and carry out training with the government, NGOs and communities. We also advocate to the government about how to implement this resolution.
I am also a part of a team that established a civilian oversight committee to monitor how the police deal with gender-based violence at police stations. This committee included Members of Parliament. As a result of its recommendations, 17 Family Response Units led by female police officers have been established. I submitted a proposal to UNIFEM to provide training to these female officers, which was successful, so we offer extensive raining and system development packaging to them. We also run the first ever hotline for victims of violence, and we have a database of organisations working with GBV victims.
We are also planning to work on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1820, which calls for a halt to sexual violence against civilians in conflict zones.
The government ratified the Shia family Law in February 2009, which does not favour women's rights. However, we have been able to successfully lobby to prevent it from being applied in practice.
While in York, I got the chance to see the curriculum for human rights education in schools. This has led me to work on developing a curriculum with the Ministry of Education. This has been well received and now we have some funding to provide training to staff of the Ministry of Education and to teachers.