Project and Programmes
Ongoing Programme
Creative International Forum (CIF) has recently implemented 'Capacity Building Programme for Protecting Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms" in partnership with National Peace Campaign (NPC). European Commission (EC) has funded this programme for the period of three years. The programme covers 30 districts of Nepal, which are mainly the conflict affected areas of Terai Region and eastern hills. The programme aims to build the capacity of the representatives of Civil Society Organization members and young politicians of the selected districts of the county so as to effectively mobilize and engage them in protecting and promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms in vulnerable districts. The focus groups of the programme are CSOs, HR and peace networks, journalists, lawyers, educators, members of CA, younger politicians, local government authorities, bureaucrats, judiciary personnel and other concerned change agent of the society. The activities of the programme include a number of workshops, trainings, media interventions and publications to capacitate specified target groups and to create awareness among common people on human rights, rights of special groups, non-violence and fundamental freedoms. The major activities of the action and their status are as follows:
Training Need Analysis (TNA) and Development of Training Manuals
Four sets of training manuals were developed and published during the first and second years of the project period. The manuals were drafted by a team of professional experts with strong academic background on human rights and peace building sectors. In this course, a series of informal discussions and arranged meetings were held with the writing team and project team members to ensure the quality of the contents incorporated in these manuals. Before printing the manuals, comments and feedbacks were collected from the training facilitators and participants in every relevant training. Necessary revisions were made on contents and their presentation based on the suggestions received. Through these manuals, we expect to familiarize social workers involved in HR protection and promotion with HR standards, national and international HR protection mechanisms, HR monitoring, fact-finding and documentation processes and steps. The list of the manual sets is as follows:
- A Training Manual on Human rights
- A Training Manual on Nonviolence and Reconciliation
- A Training Manual on HR Monitoring, Fact-finding and Documentation
- A Training manual on human rights and nonviolence (District level trainings)
Master Training on Human Rights
Master training on human rights (HR) was conducted involving 28 participants from all over Nepal. This national level training took place in Dhulikhel, Nepal in May, 2009. The training aimed to provide advanced knowledge and skills on HR standards, HR monitoring and HR advocacy to the HR activists of Nepal. International consultant Liz Philipson and Ingrid Message facilitated the training sessions. The follow up discussions are taking place with the participants regularly. The training participants are found facilitating HR based trainings/interactions as resource persons at the regional and national levels.
Regional level trainings on human rights and HR advocacy
The regional level human rights trainings were completed in 2009. Total 126 CSO actors participated in the trainings. The trainings were crucial for upgrading basic knowledge and skills of target groups on HR standards, HR mechanisms, HR issues and HR advocacy. After the trainings, the participants are carrying out tasks like HR monitoring and HR advocacy at the local levels.
Regional level trainings on Peace, Nonviolence and Reconciliation
A series of five regional trainings on non-violence and reconciliation were held with 125 CSO actors and youth politicians. The trainings aimed at providing knowledge and skills on specified areas to the target groups. The trainings started from December, 2009 and ended in March, 2010. Of the total 125 participants nearly 50% participants represented youth wings of the political parties and the remaining ones were the CSO members.
Regional Training on HR monitoring, fact-finding and documentation
Five regional level trainings on HR monitoring and documentation were held from June to August, 2010.The five-day training aimed at equipping local CSO actors with theoretical knowledge and practical skills of monitoring and documenting HR violation cases. A total of 129 participants attended the trainings. For this, these trainings involved participants in case studies, group work, role play and report writing activities on the areas specified. National level resource persons facilitated the training sessions. The trainings have provided opportunities for the CSO actors to get trained on HR monitoring and documentation. The participants have expressed their commitments to get involved in HR monitoring in their respective districts as per the action plans they have drafted during the training period.
District level trainings on human rights, non-violence and reconciliation
District level trainings have taken place in all 30 project districts, participating more than 400 persons representing youth politicians and CSO members. These three day trainings were facilitated by project team members, national resource persons and local facilitators we involved in regional and master trainings under this action. As part of capacitating local organizations on HR promotion/protection and peace building tasks, these trainings were based on core contents of HR standards, peace, non-violence and reconciliation. Under human rights (HR) section, a day discussion was held on HR concept, characteristics, HR violations and state's accountability and international humanitarian laws. In case of non-violence and peace, these trainings have included topics on what violence, peace and non-violence are; methods and strategies of non-violent movements; mediation and recociliation methods and process etc. These trainings have been significant for bringing together political party members, NGO workers and members from professional organizations like Nepal Bar Association and Federation of Journalists etc. to discuss HR issues at local levels. When conflicts and misunderstanding within a political party and inter-party disputes are rife, the participants have got a common floor to discuss the said issues.
Radio awareness on human rights, non-violence and burning social issues
Upon the broadcasting of all 100 radio episodes, the media component under the project got completed by April, 2011. The programme run in order for educating community people on basic contents of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democratic practices was broadcast from a total of 13 local FM stations across the project districts. Kathmandu based Ujyalo Network supplied the developed programmes to local FMs while the tasks of developing and producing all the weekly episodes were carried out by Transcend Vision Pvt. Ltd, which is also a Kathmandu based company. Divided into four sections, each episode included HR updates of the project region, HR instruments/HR issues, dialogues with reputed HR activists and stakeholders and Radio drama. As the media based component was coming to a concluding phase, we were mostly focussed on highlighting the previously covered issues and contents in this reporting period, assuming that this would provide refresher to target groups.
In terms of issues, the radio broadcasting package included in it a wider range of burning issues concerning human rights and democracy like Child Rights, Women Rights, Women violence, ILO 169, Consumer's Rights, Price Hike and Consumer, Security in Terai, Rights against Torture, Right to Information, Press Freedom, Right to Education-Health, Caste Discrimination, State of Disappearances, Right of Disabled persons, About Prisoners, Old People, Labour Rights, Right of Adoption, Right to Development, Sanity Awareness, HIV/AIDS Awareness, Inter-caste Marriage, Internal Displacement, Peasant Rights, Refugee Rights, Right to Food, te case of Impunity in Peace Process, social Security and others. Moreover, radio reporting has covered HR violation instances taking place locally such as fake encounters, killings of journalists/HR defenders, domestic violence against women and children group, and witchcraft charges against women and issues of security lapses from state mechanisms. Besides, the radio programme has also raised the issues of lack of state accountability and instances of corruption.
Formation of listener's clubs and their mobilization
During the project period, a total of 150 clubs were formed in project districts. In order to encourage club members to listen to the radio programme, promotional activities were carried out like distributing of hand bills, radio sets, T-shirts with program logos, quiz contests amongst club members, advertising the programme through other media, holding interactions with club members etc. Likewise, a series of intensive counselling and orientations were provided to the selected club members to encourage them to identify HR violation cases, other burning social issues like domestic violence against women, child labour, instances of HIV/AIDS etc, raise their voices before stakehoders, demanding measures to tackle these issues.
As per the follow up reports from our regional offices, the club members are initiating advocacy before relevant stakeholders to pressurize them for timely release of development funds/budgets, and accountability of its expenditure. They are also actively taking part in social dialogues, conflict mediation tasks and community level interactions arranged by other organizations on similar themes. Although broadcasting of radio awareness programme ended from June, 2011, the project team has been maintaining a regular contact with the club members to encourage them to continue paying attention to social issues.
Development, publication and distribution of IEC materials
Targeting the community people and change agents of the society, IEC materials are being prepared and distributed. So far, a Booklet on HR defenders has been published and distributed to the target groups. Written in question-answer modal, the booklet has been prepared as an additional reading material for training participants of Fact-finding and HR monitoring Training. The booklet provides the readers with basic concepts on human rights, HR standards including rights, risks of human rights defenders. Moreover, there are two sets of booklets; One, Civic Education on Democracy and Good governance; and the other Non-violence and Tolerance, both of which target community people. Wide ranges of basic concepts on democratic practices, rule of law, accountability and transparency, social co-existence, social harmony, tolerance, reconciliation and non-violence have been included in these booklets. Besides, NPC and CIF are providing relevant publications to listener club members, local HR networks and training/workshop participants. These include NPC's publications on peace, conflict transformation, constitution making process, state restructuring etc.
Social dialogue on democracy, human rights and burning social issues
In order to impart HR education to community people and discuss local HR issues, a series of social dialogues are being held in project districts, involving school teachers, school management committee members, CBO members, government representatives, political party cadres and local journalists and youth leaders. The informal partner organizations have been implementing these activities with a close support of regional programme offices created under this programme. In course of executing this activity, partner organizations are provided with detailed guidelines on objectives, participant selection process and issues to be covered in the dialogues. The project team members have observed almost all social dialogues and provided necessary inputs to the partner organizations.
These social dialogues have offered opportunities for the community people to discuss issues relating that are directly relevant to them and are lined to broader themes of HR, democracy and peace. As such, we have included discussion topics like school as zone of peace, accountability in developmental work, rights of persons with disabilities to be incorporated in new constitution, roles of youths in consolidating democracy, roles of youths for sustainable peace, ways of overcoming domestic violence against women, Rights of indigenous people in federal setting of Nepal; Constitution drafting process and rights of excluded communities of Nepal; peace building process and HR situation; role of civil society for ascertaining inclusive democracy, Inclusion and respect of Human rights for sustained peace, public hearing on peace and constitution, deteriorating security situation in the Terai region; child rights status, issues of child abductions, federalism and human rights, roles of stakeholders for improving security situation in Terai, effective mobilization of CBO networks for HR protection and the like. Not only these buring social issues were discussed with stakeholders, but their commitments were sought to address them at the earliest.
Regional level Strategic Planning Workshops
The regional level strategic planning workshops were completed by June, 2009. Total 277 CSO actors from 69 districts attended the workshops. The follow up activities like providing publications and holding review meetings with CSO actors are going on. CSOs that are coordinating the regional networks and the responsible persons involved are as follows:
Name of the regional peace network coordinating organizations and coordinators
SN |
Name of the organizations |
Name of network coordinators |
1. |
HUSADEC, Dhankuta |
Mr. Bidhur Subedi |
2. |
Samaj Vikash Kendra, Parsa |
Mr. Kamal Mohan Pokhrel |
3. |
Indreni Development Centre, Rupandehi |
Mr. Pradip Shah |
4. |
Creative International Forum(CIF), Regional office |
Bir Bahadur Nepali |
5. |
Gramin Bikash Kendre, Kanchanpur |
Mr. Rup Singh Dagaura |
Although regional level strategic planning workshops were conducted in the first year (2009) of the project period, we are still in touch with the participants/organizations based on the loose regional networks formed and networks' strategy formulated during the workshops. The workshop participants (organizations) have been involved in a series of trainings and other project activities as per the objectives of the project to strengthen their capacities and alliances to engage in HR promotion and protection tasks. Regular follow up meetings, sharing of publications, reports, appeals, resource persons are the other initiatives taken to strengthen the networks.
Monitoring of human rights and conflict situation
As per the project objective to enhance collective involvement of local organzations/netowrks to monitor HR violation cases, regional HR networks and district focal organizations have been regularly monitoring HR and conflict situation in their respective regions. In this course, mainly the participants of regional level trainings (HR monitoring and documentation) have been mobilized in these tasks on behalf of their organizations with a belief that this would contribute to capacity building of local organizations in this area. In order to see to it that the tasks of HR monitoring are carried out properly, our regional offices would collect monthly reports, quarterly reports from the district focal organizations and regional networks; and compile them into a quarterly report region-wise. In case of severe cases of HR violations, these networks initiated to undertake field monitoring and fact-finding of the cases. For both types of action, some financial contribution (as incentive) has been provided to the organizations involved. Besides this, media monitoring of HR and conflict situation are going on day to day basis at the central office, looking at the information contained in the national newspapers, which are being documented in a software program installed, and based on them quarterly HR updates have been compiled.
Counselling support to vulnerable groups and advocacy for justice
CIF has been taking a wide range of initiatives to provide legal and counselling support to victims of HR violations and abuses. Based on the cases indentified and docuemented through it regional offices, necessary psychological counselling and legal aid are being provided to such victims. Looking at gravity of the cases at hand, CIF and its regional networks jointly act to help victims to have an access to HR based national institutes, local state bodies and national mechanisms for justice. In this course, a number of victims of child rights violations, sexul abuses, children and women suffering from domestic violence have been supported. In addtion to it, targeting the vulnerable groups like school children, marginalized communites, old aged people etc, CIF has been conducting community awareness programmes with support of local organizations in project districts.
Civil society engagements in mediation & peaceful conflict transformation
Conflict mediation is one of the project components to be implemented at the community level to resolve local conflicts/disputes by applying mediation process rather than that requiring force and any means of violence. This activity is being executed by our informal partners, in which process CBO/CSO actors, political party members and local peace/HR networks are involved as mediators. Mostly, those who have participated in regional level trainings have been given this responsibility. The disputes resolved and mediated so far included those closures of schools due to conflicts in school management team; Disputes amongst villagers on charge of child trafficking; domestic disputes (husband's beating wife) and so on.
Meetings of CSO Networks
In an effort to strengthen CSO networks, periodic review and planning meetings are going on. These meetings are held among the members of regional peace networks created under this project. These meetings were participated by the representatives of the regional peace networks and district focal organizations covered by them. These one day meetings were mainly focussed on assessing overall HR situation of participating respective regions; review the initiatives taken by district networks; ways of strengthening networks and future activities of the networks. As per the agendas set, district representatives have presented their assessment of HR situation based on the information/data they have documented; shared how these networks are working to protect HR and offered their valuable suggestions on the possible interventions/iniatives to be taken to keep these networks working.
Strengthening and mobilization of civil society networks
After the formation of regional level peace networks, we are making continuous efforts on mobilizing and strengthening CSO networks. In this process, we have encouraged HR organizations in the project districts to work together in loose forums/networks for the cause of human rights and democracy. As a positive outcome, HR networks have been formed/reformed with the initiations of HR organizations involved in the activities of this project. Now, the network members have started to meet together to discuss the issues they have at hand. For instance, in Siraha cluster (regional centre) a total of 8 such meetings have been held, in which 33 local HR activists (those representing district networks) have participated in this reporting period while Chitwan based regional cluster has documented 4 meetings with 35 participants. Similarly, 6 meetings of CSO networks in different districts covered by Banke based regional cluster. Moreover, Dhankuta based HR network is actively arranging meetings, interactions and advocacy campaign against violent acts and HR abuses.
Map of Nepal highlighting 30 project districts Click to view Detail