Monday, 23 July 2007

Topic: What is dignity? Definitions/understandings. Is dignity universal and/or is it individualistic? What is the utility for a concept of dignity in social justice work? What are measurable manifestations in life that tell us whether dignity is realized in a particular context? What measurements constitute failure? What is the
role of the State in ensuring right to dignity for all? (Register by Thursday, 19 July)

Facilitator: Priti Darooka (India) is Founder and Executive Director of the new intíl Program on Womenís Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (PWESCR). Previously at the Ford Foundation in the New York Human Rights unit, her work has focused on promoting women and ESCR. Prior to the Ford Foundation, she worked with UNIFEM on violence against women indicators & assessment and coordinated UNIFEMís work in Afghanistan. As a consultant to the Center for Women's Global Leadership, she organized a women’s human rights hearing at the UN conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa. She was National Campaign Coordinator with UNITE for their Global Justice for Garment Workers Campaign. Priti has also worked with Manavi, a South Asian womenís organization working with women and children who faced violence in their lives. At Urban Justice Center (UJC), she worked with the NYC Welfare Reform & Human Rights Documentation Project, where she developed policy briefs on welfare reform and women, which were used as a media and advocacy tool by welfare advocates of NYC to expose human rights violations. She was also involved in the Stop FTAA (Free Trade Area of Americas) campaign and focused on different aspects of trade, and women’s lives, from a feminist and human rights perspective.

*This is event is hosted by equalinrights in cooperation with PWESCR. PWESCR is a new international initiative in the area of gender and economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR). PWESCR works with its partners in the region (South Asia) and internationally to develop new strategies to focus more effectively on building capacity and strengthening women’s research, analysis and activism on ESCR. PWESCR’s mission is to promote women’s human rights, especially in the context of economic, social and cultural rights, by bringing a gender framework to policy, law and practice at the local, national, regional and international levels through continually-evolving strategies and activities in both the conceptual and the practical realms. We are requesting funding for the first year of activities.

In order to get conceptual clarity and to learn from experiences globally, PWESCR plans to facilitate several e-discussions on the Right to Dignity in the next 6 months. Additionally, we have personally invited 20 individuals from various parts of the world to comment on the paper, Thoughts on dignity. We plan to conduct some additional interviews and continue our research on the issue. Based on what kind of responses we get, PWESCR plans to organize a 2 day international consultation in early 2008 on Dignity and how to make it real. We plan to capture all our learning and various conversations with some thought
on indicators, and forward strategies in a paper/report that we will publish in 2008. For PWESCR, dignity is crucial as we have realized in South Asian context given how severe the impacts of poverty are that we cannot talk about women’s ESC rights without talking about dignity.

Monday, 30 July 2007

Topic: Have human rights-based strategies been successful in ensuring
more grassroots voices are heard and listened to during local and
national policy development processes? (Register by Thursday, 26 July)

Facilitator: Aye Aye Win (Burma) is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Dignity International and responsible for the organisation's overall operation. Dignity International works to: support human rights advocacy of the communities in the frontline of the struggle for survival - people whose basic human rights are denied; connect the different struggling communities across national borders; and build a global family for lasting social change. She has initiated a number of programmes including the Linking & Learning Programme on Human Rights in Development. She is involved in facilitating learning programmes and developing participatory learning materials on human rights based approaches. Previously, Aye Aye worked with the Council of Europe (1997-2002), the London-based NGO International Alert (1993-1996) and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Japan on secondment.