The workshop was co-organised by PAIRVI & EKA, Madhya Pradesh at Bhopal from 4th to 6th October 2024.
The workshop attempted to create space for groups and individuals involved in advocacy initiatives to come together, share experiences and learn from each other. Facilitators were from the organizing team and the participant team as well. The workshop was interactive and rely on the sharing from the participants. We collectively learned how to plan, practice and proceed for advocacy. We also learned the better ways of networking, mobilization, communication, documentation, team building, and leadership.
Achievement-based objectives of the workshop included:
- Discussed the concept of Access to Justice and Advocacy for social change with a focus on highlighting voices from the margins.
- Shared the challenges and learnings from their advocacy initiatives around diverse issues.
- Discussed strategies that have worked in various contexts especially in engaging with policy makers and communities.
- Worked to enhance their understanding on building community leaderships that lead, guide community-led advocacy initiatives.
- Understood provisions enshrined in the constitution, national and international legal instruments that uphold access to justice.
- Developed a series of actions including Research, Documentation, Media Engagement, Capacity Building, and Community Mobilization among others to plan a common advocacy initiative.
Priority issues included nature and scope of public advocacy, changing pattern and new avenues of advocacy, planning and evaluation, networking and network management, community mobilization, team building and leadership, media advocacy, report writing and photo/ video documentation. Participants added value by bringing in discussion on issues that they worked on.
The workshop was attended by 35 representatives of CSOs/CBOs, people’s movements, practitioners, campaigners, and rights defenders from districts of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Delhi. Para-legals, lawyers, Access to Justice Programmers, Social Workers, Researchers, Trade Union and Youth group leaders added a new dimension to the workshop. The age group in the workshop ranged from 23 to 56 years. Several participants were skilled in singing Jan Geet, playing the dafli, poetry recital and other live performances. Some participants joined the resource team to share about a core topic. Some facilitated sessions with the key facilitators. Collective knowledge of the participants ranged from Child Rights & Law, Gender Justice, Youth Engagement, Performing Media, Research & Documentation, Design & Development, Development Communication, Facilitating Participatory processes, Constitutional values and Rights, Interpretation of Law, Advocacy and Advocacy for Policy Change.
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