What’s next in advocacy and activism for Human Rights in the IVS movement?
From April 23rd until April 30th, 28 representatives of IVS organisations and NGOs involved in topics of Peace and Human Rights gathered in Strasbourg for a Study Session of the Council of Europe coordinated by the CCIVS.
The Study Session for Raising Peace has three objectives:
- To evaluate and valorize the result of the 2014-2015 editions of the Raising Peace campaign, sharing the tools developed on Human Rights education and activism;
- To build long term strategies together with the different actors of the campaign;
- To open synergies and opportunities of cooperation with institutions and NGO’s which are strategic for the goals of the campaign.
Getting to know each other
The first evening (on the arrival day) was dedicated to “getting to know each other” sessions, through interactive activities of collective drawings of portraits from one another.
Meme on Human Rights
The first day of the study session aimed for the participants to understand the Raising Peace campaign and its three objectives: empowerment, action and advocacy. The participants indeed created a Meme about what they think of Human Rights and trying to connect what their organisations do with the actions existing under the Raising Peace campaign.
Mapping Human Rights violation and NGO action
The second part of the day aimed at analyzing and understanding the situation of the world in terms of Human Rights. The participants were involved in a workshop of mapping the violation of Human Rights in their own countries according to four topics:
- Peace;
- Gender and sexuality;
- Food ans housing;
- Migration and refugees.
Participants were then asked to map the actions that their organisations or other NGOs do in response to the violations of Human Rights.
The day ended with a thematic evening on migration which opened to discussions about the situation of refugees in the world and more specifically in Europe and Middle East.