Lecture: Human rights, advocacy and community activism

25 August, 2019

The Pal-Think for Strategic Studies institution carried out a lecture titled “An introduction to human rights, advocacy, and communal activism), within the project “The Youth Forum for Politics and Development”, in cooperation with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Pal-Think hosted the researcher and doctor in law and human rights, Dr Samia al-Ghussein, with the participation of a team composed of 25 youth (13 females : 12 males) within the age category 18–25, who have the passion to learn about politics and development.

The lecture aimed principally at supplying the youth with the knowledge needed to defend their rights, and increasing awareness in order to work diligently in the field of advocacy and lobbying, to contribute to bringing about a change in policies and a positive influence in society.

Dr Samia opened the lecture with an activity, dividing the team into 3 groups to speak of the kinds and divisions of the rights every person must enjoy. There followed talk of the principal axes of the discussion: Dr Samia took up two principal axes. The first axis took up human rights, and that comprised what human rights are, the importance of human rights, the characteristics of human rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; she likewise spoke of the Human Rights Council and the international covenant for each of political, social, cultural, and economic rights, and the youth's role in advocating human rights.

The second axis took up lobbying, advocacy, and communal activism; a number of subjects were discussed within this frame, comprising the definition of advocacy, the importance of advocacy and lobbying, the elements of advocacy, the five stages in the advocacy process, the policies and strategies of advocacy campaigns, in addition to talk of digital advocacy.

Dr Samia concluded the lecture with an activity resting on testing the understanding of the articles of human rights: the youth were engaged and a discussion session was held to answer the questions, and that likewise comprised presenting a summary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and giving examples from reality for each article of the charter and the violations that correspond to it.