About the project

 

Within "Enhancement of Inclusive Education Strategies in ANHRE member NGOs"  project which funded by IM- Swedish Development Partner. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the development of gender equality, rights based approach and inclusion policies, procedures, systems and programs of ANHRE network. ANHREs' citizenship toolkit is being piloted with specific target groups selected by the members.

 

Arab Network for Civic Education - ANHRE adopts inclusiveness and gender mainstreaming in its citizenship toolkit and pilots in at least 15 different contexts in the year of 2017. This comes in line with its new strategic plan 2017- 2020. ANHRE identified 15 participants with various experiences and different background who will contribute to enrich the content of the workshop and develop the toolkit.

 

A piloting workshop about democratic citizenship was conducted by Art for Human Rights Organization, in Jordan. The target people were social media actors.

 

During the piloting workshop conducted by Khuzama Al- Rasheed, a human rights and educational specialist from Art for Human Rights organization, the issues of inclusion and non- discrimination, mainstreaming rights of persons with disability and the rights of refugees were addressed. 16 people attended (half of them females) and what they all had in common was working with social media or having an interest in the social media platform. The main reason for the workshop was to discuss about how the people who are concerned with social media can promote human rights via the social media platform and how to be more objective.

 

In the beginning of the workshop the universal declaration of human rights was discussed and everyone got to choose one of the articles which they believed was the most important one. For some it was difficult to only choose one and others believed that it was hard to only focus on one article since it depends on the current situation of the country.

 

Within the three main topics (non- discrimination, mainstreaming rights of persons with disability and the rights of refugees) also other important subjects were discussed as diversity, women's rights, underage marriage, education for all. Also the rights and importance of voting and taking initiatives in the society was discussed. 

 

How to talk about vulnerable groups

One of the attendants where the 14 years old boy Omar El-Masri, from The International Academy Amman, and he shared something he had learned:

 

"The most important thing that I learned today was how people view at people with disabilities and how they can be treated. I know how to treat people with disabilities, but I learned how to talk about these people, which words to use when talking about them and not to talk about them as if they were people with special needs. I met Rawan today who is blind and she sees herself as normal. In the end I found out that you have to take care of people with disabilities but not to make them feel abnormal or that they are treated differently".

 

Some participants presented sketches in order to show why the mentioned topics are important and how people face problems in their daily life. In one sketch concerning women's rights, a man was saying that he had a wife who just sat at home, doing nothing. He didn't consider his wife working even though she took care of the whole household and the kids. This is a problem which many women face, being underestimated for the work that they accomplish at home.

 

Also another sketch was presented in order to discuss the refugees rights in the society and that they are equal to anyone else, which is not obvious for everyone in Jordan today. Refugees are treated differently and don't have the same rights as other citizens in the country.

 

A plan for the social media workers

 

When the workshop was finished and these issues concerning women, refugees and people with disabilities were indicated, a plan was made for the social media workers. Also another workshop was held where the focus was more on the sketches regarding the mentioned topics above. It was also discussed how the participants could share and spread stories about vulnerable groups and in which way they should write about these people in order for them to break stereotypes and prejudices in the society.

 

Art for Human Rights organization aims to empower the participants even more and that is why they have been assisted to link the participants with other specialized organizations in order to gain more knowledge about the mentioned topics, so that they can manipulate the ideas through social media. Already two participants have been referred to a refugee camp with UNHCR and now their responsibility is to influence the society via the social media and to prove their capacities and skills that they have learned.

 

 

Khuwzama's experience with ANHRE

 

ANHRE conducted a training workshop for five days to ensure gender and inclusive mainstreaming in its citizenship toolkit. The piloting for the toolkit was made by 15 main targeted members. Khuwzama acknowledges that she learned some new things from the workshop with ANHRE:

 

“I gained experiences from the raised discussion about ANHREs' democratic citizenship manual and all its' themes because the people that attended where from different countries and the discussion that was raised enriched the content of the manual.“

 

Furthermore she explains why she choose this target group:

"They were chosen in order to raise awareness among youth, on how to strengthen solidarity and advocacy with these issues on different media platforms. I believe that they have an important role in the society and that they can use social media for the matter of human rights."