Liberation’s Capacity Building Programme on Women’s Rights

20th July 2010

Background

This initiative is the outcome of two women’s meetings held at the House of Commons on 13th May and 15th July 2009. Both meetings, chaired by Clare Short MP, were a successful starting point to initiate an effective work on women’s issues. The meetings were well-attended with women from a wide variety of backgrounds, working across many issues and on many campaigns and represented by more than 20 groups/organisations in England.

Participants raised a variety of issues that mainly demonstrated their concerns about the discrimination and violence against women in private and public spheres, which take different forms in different societies. Diversity in campaign to eradicate violence and discrimination against women both domestically and internationally and many other issues were raised. It was noted that a decision upon a common theme was not easy, as the work of each group or individual was inevitably their priority.

Programme

In view of the discussions at both meetings Liberation decided to work on a ‘Capacity Building’ programme on women’s rights. The aim is to raise awareness and increase the capacity of women’s groups and organisations which work or are in contact with Liberation, to enable them to undertake effective activism in order to improve women’s situations. The programme would therefore intend to strengthen women’s knowledge of and access to: international frameworks, such as the UN, EU, UK Parliament and Trade Unions; their fundamental rights and how to protect them and how to strengthen their organisation through accessing funding.

Progress of the Programme

A dedicated programme, initiated by ‘Capacity Building’ events on yearly action plan, was prepared. These events would provide immediate support to women’s organisations to do effective activism and would also enable Liberation to build the future action plans for the programme. The capacity building events were organised as three half day training events and considered as initial phase of this programme:

Training day 1 – State of Art Review of Women’s Rights

This event was held on 26th Nov 2009 and aimed to highlight the current problems faced by women activists around the world and main conventions which provide protection to women’s Rights at International, National and Local levels.

Heather Harvey, head of the UK Amnesty International’s Campaign, ‘Stop Violence against Women’, and Professor Christine Chinkin, Professor of Law at London School of Economics were keynote speakers. An interactive breakout session was facilitated by Catriona Vine, (Legal Director) and Anna Irvine (Communication & Outreach Officer) of the Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP).

Professor Chinkin highlighted the importance of institutional frameworks for women’s human rights. In particular, she focused on The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 1979 and Optional Protocol 1999 to the Convention and the procedures available under the two instruments.

Heather Harvey talked about the Amnesty International’s ‘Stop Violence against Women’ campaign in UK. She suggested that the best way to work on women’s rights issues is to work in coalition but to consider whom to work with because of the diversity of methods in achieving the same aim. She also emphasised the need for a good quality primary research that should be externally focused. With regard to the Black and Ethnic Minority women’s issues Heather stressed the need for an integrated approach to these communities to raise awareness on legal instruments at the national and international levels.

Training day 2 – Instruments and Mechanism to Protect Women’s Rights

Day 2 was held on 11th Feb 2010. Training was aimed at the implementation of CEDAW and the Optional Protocol and developing Shadow report to be able to work at an international level and to undertake effective lobbying.

We had two distinctive trainers Tania Pouwhare, Head of Policy on CEDAW from the Women Resource Centre and Catriona Vine, Legal Director of the Kurdish Human Rights Project.

Catriona provided training on the implementation and litigation support on CEDAW. The convention is often referred to as the women’s international Bill of Rights. Consisting of permeable and 30 articles, it defines what constitute discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to eradicate it. By accepting the Convention, states (countries) commit themselves to undertake a series of measures to end all forms of discriminations against women. The Optional Protocol attached to the convention allows individuals to take their cases to CEDAW Committee. She also covered a step by step guide to develop reports, individual complaints and preparation for communications.

Tania explained who monitors adherence to the CEDAW and when governments report to CEDAW Committee. She described the process of reporting to CEDAW Committee and clarified the differences between the reports.

Training day 3 – Fundraising and Resource Planning

Day 3 was held on 18th June 2010 and aimed to provide links, information and best practice in accessing funding and how to undertakeresource planning for an effective activism by women’s rights groups to ensure they are able to maintain and develop their objectives.

We had two distinctive trainers Noelle Gilbert, Head of Sustainable Funds at the Women Resource Centre and Sarah Menzies, Project Manager at the Evelyn Oldfield Trust.

Noelle described how to develop sustainable funding and covered the types of sustainable funds, planning, raising money from individual donors and trading and social enterprises.

Sarah focused on Trust and Lottery funds and explained how they work. She provided tips and techniques on how to write good funding applications. She also gave information and resources on funding opportunities in UK and internationally.

During the above events a number of issues were raised and recommendations made which have been recorded and would be taken into consideration by Liberation with regard to the future actions on the ‘Capacity Building’ and other programmes on women.

4 Programme Collaborators

London School of Economics

Amnesty International UK

Women Resource Centre

Evelyn Oldfield Trust

Kurdish Human Rights Project

R Greenwood