LAHORE, Pakistan: The Peoples Commission for Minorities’ Rights (PCMR) and the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) organized a training workshop on human rights advocacy & lobbying in Lahore as part of a more extensive training program aimed at building the capacity of lawyers, journalists and activists on how to effectively undertake efforts for the promotion and protection of minority rights.
As many as 27 lawyers, journalists and activists affiliated with different non-governmental organizations (NGOs), media houses & law firms participated in the training – a sequel to an earlier training workshop focusing on human rights fact-finding, monitoring and documentation.
Peter Jacob, Tanveer Jahan, Saroop Ijaz and Shakeel Ahmed facilitated the sessions, and shared their personal experiences of engagement with the decision-makers for protection of human rights.
Peter Jacob stated that affirmative measures in the area of legislation, policy making, awareness and implementation of court orders need to be taken to make equality of rights for the minorities possible.
Saroop Ijaz stated that engagement at multiple levels is imperative to influence the decision-makers introducing legal, administrative and remedial mechanism for protection of human rights.
Tanveer Jahan stated activists need to do context analysis and stakeholders analysis, and must develop research based evidence and a concrete advocacy plan in support of the human rights issue that want to address.
Shakeel Ahmad stated activists must acquaint themselves with modern social media tools for effective advocacy and lobbying to improve implementation of human rights.
