rights

The aim of this project is to improve protection mechanisms and policies regarding basic rights and public services to the elderly. Three local partners, each located in one of the three targeted provinces will help complete the project. The project will collect data to close the evidence gap, raise public awareness, and enhance capacity building of the elderly and paralegals as they advocate to improve elderly programs and legal and public services at village and community levels. The project will include a strong gender focus by prioritizing women as paralegals and recipients of legal services.

This two-year project aims at strengthening media to play a role in fostering an effective, inclusive and transparent democracy in Mali. Based on field assessments of media outlets and CSOs, the project will build the capacity of media to report on good governance and human rights issues, break the financial dependency on political sponsorship through training on business skills and greater sector accountability, and help journalists and civil society actors to work together on data projects.

The project aims to address low levels of media knowledge and social media awareness in Bhutan’s rural population, urban centric news media, and the lack of viable, private and free media coverage on rural issues. By training journalists to report on local issues in both mainstream and social media the project will encourage local communities to engage in active reporting on rural issues. Small grants will be awarded by a jury to recognize excellence in local journalism and to encourage continued meaningful contributions to free media in Bhutan by individual rural journalists.

This project seeks to improve access to justice for some 2,900 indigenous women living in rural areas of Tecpan, Guatemala through free legal support, accompaniment of survivors, and strengthening local governance and municipal response to violence against women and girls. In addition, the project aims to increase the capacities of 175 key public actors including community leaders, service providers, and police at the local, municipal, and departmental level to provide quality services to indigenous survivors and promote human rights.

This project seeks to improve access to justice for some 2,900 indigenous women living in rural areas of Tecpan, Guatemala through free legal support, accompaniment of survivors, and strengthening local governance and municipal response to violence against women and girls. In addition, the project aims to increase the capacities of 175 key public actors including community leaders, service providers, and police at the local, municipal, and departmental level to provide quality services to indigenous survivors and promote human rights.

The project aims to promote the recognition of domestic work as decent work and domestic workers (WDs) contribution to society. 3500 domestic workers reached will be positioned to take individual and collective actions to improve working conditions. Two Associations of existing 61 mutual support groups of the domestic workers will be established to build solidarity and support for each other, develop advocacy strategies and represent themselves with support from PLA in influencing change. This project will also further the participation of female and youth DWs in claiming their rights, accessing services including legal aid and inclusion in decision making in policy, local and national government processes.

This was a well-structured project which laid the foundation for a nationwide network of journalists concerned with human rights issues, particularly in rural marginalized areas. The project was relevant and much needed given the context of human rights abuses and the suppression of the media. It was also appropriate, although there are constraints there is sufficient democratic space for human rights influenced journalism since journalists were able to write about a range of human rights issues and call duty-bearers to account. The project also met its objectives: the skills of journalists in relation to human rights issues have been enhanced, reporting on human rights has increased, and civil society capacity to understand how the media works has improved – though closer engagement between NGOs and the media could be further strengthened.

The project sought to expand the space for informed public dialogue on human rights issues in Jordan and contribute to building a stronger public culture of respect for human rights. The developed a training manual on how to use data-driven journalism to cover human rights issues and trained a group of journalists to apply these skills in their daily work. The project also aimed to foster a more informed public dialogue on human rights issues through the production of high quality journalism and radio programmes that actively informed and engaged the public on human rights topics. The project also leveraged of new technology tools to provide media with more factual information to produce human rights-oriented stories. The exceeded its targets including the training of 11 senior journalists and 69 students/junior journalists on the use of data-driven journalism and publishing 52 in-depth stories as well as broadcasting 12 radio shows. The project helped consolidate a community of journalists highly engaged in covering human rights-related issues. It also helped in setting higher standards for reporting, encouraging other journalists to adopt similar methodologies and widen the use of data-driven and evidence-based journalism. As such, the project contributed to building a public culture of respect for human rights in Jordan, with a focus on freedom of expression and gender equality.

The project sought to increase public demand for law reform based on the principles of justice and equality. It did this by raising awareness among women on their rights within Islam and women’s access to justice. Its intended outcomes were: increased awareness of rights among women at the grassroots level; increased public discussions on religion; and increased engagement and dialogue among women’s groups and government stakeholders by 2015. The project attempted to effect change from the bottom up, but more activities would have been needed at the grassroots level for the desired outcomes. One-off workshops were not enough to create the type of momentum and broad based support needed to create a surge in public voice for law reform.

The aim of the project was to engage talented young artists and journalists, and encourage them to use new forms of art in promoting change and advocating for free speech and media freedom as a cornerstone of democracy. The project had three primary outcomes: an increase in media coverage on human rights, media freedom, free speech and the right of access to information by trained young journalists; an increase in the engagement of young people in human rights, media freedom, free speech and the right of access to information through artistic activities/products by young artists; and raised awareness of young people of human rights, media freedom, free speech and the right of access to information by end-2013. The project assumed that enhancing the understanding and skills of the young journalists and artists participating in training, writing/performing and networking will have a multiplier effect. Participants joined an already established network called ‘Freedom Messengers’. The project also included public events and an advocacy campaign that were intended to build public support for the Freedom Messengers and thus create pressure for change. Additionally, the project included the further development of an existing on-line observatory and the creation of a web presence for the Freedom Messengers. The evaluation found that in the implementation of the project the specific press/information-related focus was lost. Consequently there a mismatch between the activities undertaken and the specific objectives set.