European Roma Rights Centre Roma Rights Summer Workshop 2005
1 February 2006
Larry Olomoofe1
From 5th-14th July 2005, the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) in conjunction with the Canadian Human Rights Foundation (CHRF) and the Council of Europe (CoE) held its annual Roma Rights summer workshop aimed at capacity-building for Romani activists and students in the sphere of Roma Rights Advocacy. The ten day workshop was attended by seventeen participants from Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States of America. As one can clearly see from this list of countries, the ERRC/CHRF Roma Rights summer workshop has gained increasing popularity and is now regularly attended by Romani people from other (Western European) countries and not solely by participants from Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and the broad spread of participants of the summer workshop was reminiscent of last year's workshop which too was attended by people from countries other than those from the CEE region. The diverse backgrounds of the participants was a useful development in terms of providing a vast pool of experiences of what Romani people encounter in different, regional as well as national, contexts. This allowed for a wide range of comparison and similarity of experience amongst the participants that was particularly unique to this year's workshop. This year's workshop also benefited from a contribution by the New York based advocacy organisation WITNESS who kindly provided a day-long session on the skills and techniques involved in video advocacy work.
The workshop addressed the fundamental distinctions in terms of approaches to Roma Rights advocacy and activism focusing participants attention on the major differences between the "rights-based" and the "needs-based" approaches to advocacy. Throughout the duration of the workshop, the participants had to grapple with the concept of effective advocacy and how to ensure that their actions would have a longer lasting impact for the people and interests that they were supposed to be representing. It is widely believed by acolytes of the aforementioned rights-based approach that this method was more effective in addressing the numerous cases of violations that Romani communities faced across the region.2
The workshop organisers employed the methodology of group-work where participants were divided into individual groups and handed a number of worksheets and instructed by facilitators to discuss topics amongst themselves. This allowed the topics to be examined in greater detail and provided the participants with the opportunity to acquire a more nuanced understanding of the rights-based approach and how Roma issues fit within this paradigm.
The primary purpose of the Workshop was to develop the capacity of a new generation of Romani leaders and human rights activists, to use domestic, regional and international human rights instruments and mechanisms to advance the rights of Romani communities across the Central and Eastern Europe region, both domestically and internationally.
The main objectives of the Summer Workshop were to enable participants to:
- Analyse issues and situations affecting Roma in their respective countries, based on internationally accepted human rights values and principles;
- Develop skills in using domestic mechanisms (such as national legislation) and international human rights instruments (i.e., United Nations Treaties, the European Convention of Human Rights, etc.) to protect and promote the rights of Roma;
- Strengthen skills in monitoring and reporting human rights violations and racial discrimination, as well as advocacy skills;
- Increase their capacity to apply their learning within their organisations and their societies;
- Explore opportunities for networking and developing partnerships with NGOs and government officials to further advance the cause of Roma rights throughout Europe.
In keeping with ERRC HRE methodology, the workshop was implemented via use of an integrative manual which formed the basis of the training. The workshop also incorporated a number of presentations by staff members of the ERRC as well as a day long examination of the European Convention and European Court of Human Rights conducted by the British barrister, Mr. Timothy Arthur Jones. The method of combining presentations and the integrative approach allowed for greater focus by the participants on the various topics that were covered during the training and was a significant improvement on previous editions of the summer workshop. The fact that participants had to employ a hands-on approach to the material being covered proved to be a useful method because it allowed the participants to grapple with human rights issues and concepts directly and in a more intimate, concentrated fashion. This is evinced by a series of workshop roleplaying activities such as effective debating skills and moot court sessions of the workshop.
Effective Debating Skills was a day-long session in the fundamentals of effective debating focusing on the skills involved in (formal) debating. The rationale underpinning this particular segment of the training workshop was that by providing information on the various techniques
The organisers hoped that the participants could transpose the skills involved in debating (researching the topic, organising the material, preparation of evidence and effective arguments, constructing a lucid, coherent argument, concise presentation of the facts, etc) to their own spheres of activity at home. In learning these skills, the participants would be able to subsequently present a dispassionate, objective case/argument in various arenas and fora (courts, tribunals, parliamentary and other committees, etc.) thereby becoming more effective in their advocacy work.
The Moot Court was a day-long session facilitated by the aforementioned British barrister, Mr. Timothy Arthur Jones, that entailed a detailed examination of the European Convention on Human Rights including specific technical information on procedure of the European Court of Human Rights, followed by a moot court (role-playing) session by the participants. The moot court session involved a case study and the participants being separated into two legal teams and having to present a case in front of the "European Court of Human Rights". One team represented the victim(s) of the supposed human rights violations and the other team represented the national government who were blamed for the violations in the first place. This session drew on participants' debating skills picked up the day before and was a very useful experience for all involved.
During the workshop, participants were also provided with an introduction to the European (European Union and Council of Europe) and broader International (United Nations) legal framework and were presented with in-depth information on the complex processes each of these spheres of international law entailed. In particular, participants examined the following legal instruments:
- Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM)
- European Convention on Human Rights
- European Union Race Directive
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- International Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)
- Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
- Convention for the Rights of the Child (CRC)
- International covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
- International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
Within the parameters of these international [legal] instruments adumbrated above, the participants conducted a number of group activities and discussions aimed at discerning how relevant the processes intrinsic to international law were to the respective Romani issues and communities back in their home countries. There was a useful discussion on the twin issues of women's rights and cultural rights where participants expressed their strongly held opinions on the issues. The main issue that generated sometimes passionate responses was that of cultural identities and practices within Romani communities and whether some practices were persistent or not and if so, whether they violated any rights of some of the members of a given community.
As was mentioned earlier above, a major development in the programme this year was the inclusion of a day-long presentation on the usefulness of video advocacy provided by Ms. Violeta Krasnic from the New York based NGO WITNESS. Her session began with a discussion about the merits and demerits of video advocacy, proceeding into a more specific discussion about the techniques and skills required/involved in this form of advocacy. Here she presented the participants with a technical overview of how to conduct video advocacy (through provision of material produced by other NGOs with assistance from WITNESS), as well as other helpful insights culminating with her conducting a series of exercises on video advocacy with the participants.
There were a number of insightful presentations by ERRC staff who conducted sessions revolving around their tasks and duties for the ERRC. The main area of interest was that of advocacy, and Mr. Istvan Fenyvesi conducted a couple of sessions on his tasks related to his duties as Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Officer at the ERRC. In addition to these informative presentations, there were a number of activities outside of the main workshop sessions including a presentation by Ms. Enisa Eminova from the Open Society Institute's Network Women's Program on the cultural/ traditional practice of the virginity cult among Romani communities in Macedonia.
The workshop ended with an extensive evaluation session where follow-up initiatives were presented and discussed by each participant and the intention to continue future collaborative work amongst each other. The workshop was well received by the participants and a number of them are keen to conduct immediate follow-up activities in their countries and have requested technical assistance from the ERRC. The ERRC intends to follow-up with these individuals in the near future as well. In concluding, it should be stressed that the diversity of participants allowed for a rich and fruitful 10 days of activities and served as a platform for future collaborative projects amongst the participants as well as for the main organisers – ERRC, CHRF, COE and WITNESS. This provided us all with a firm foundation for future collaborative human rights education related initiatives.
Endnotes:
- Larry Olomoofe is ERRC Human Rights Trainer.
- This is based upon an acceptance that all human beings have rights, and it is therefore absolutely unacceptable that any of these rights are abrogated by anybody ? state institutions such as the police, education or housing authorities or private individuals, etc.
Written Comments by the European Roma Rights Centre concerning Serbia to the Human Rights Council, within its Universal Periodic Review, for consideration at its 29th session (January-February 2018).
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Written comments by the ERRC to the European Commission on enlargement component of the EU Roma Framework.
