Photo caption: Ayalnesh Alayu Belete from Ethiopia and Tolulope Ayanbanke Tilley-Gyado from Nigeria are looking at a case study discussed during the session on complaints handling.
Participants from across Africa are meeting this week to learn, discuss and explore the concepts of human rights, the instruments and monitoring mechanisms, and the roles and functions of NHRIs.
The Network of African National Human Rights Institutions (NANHRI) and Raoul Wallenberg Institute are organizing the fourth “Regional Foundation Course on Human Rights for African NHRIs” in Nairobi, Kenya, with 24 participants from 12 African NHRIs.
“Although I have been working at the Ugandan Human Rights Commission for four years, I am learning a lot from this course. It gives me a solid theoretical background and a greater understanding and appreciation of the work the Commission is doing. I work in the department of Research, Education & Documents and the content taught will benefit my work there,” says course participant Maureen Nalubega.
The foundation course targets entry-mid level staff of African NHRIs and is implemented through of a blended learning format combining an e-Learning component with a following face-to-face training segment. The four e-Learning modules provide the participants with a theoretical background on the various areas of human rights, and these topics are then expanded upon and in an interactive manner the theory is linked to practice in the following face-to-face workshop.
The Raoul Wallenberg Institute has been working with NHRIs for a number of years. “NHRIs are key institutions for applying international human rights standards to national contexts, and their monitoring mandate of duty bearers – whether governments or private sector- is important to ensure that rights are not violated,” says Madelene Eichorn, Programme Officer at RWI.
“The Foundation Course has been very much appreciated by the African NHRIs. So far, RWI and NANHRI in its longstanding partnership have trained a total of 100 staff from 16 different African NHRIs. The combination of the e-Learning modules and the meeting where participants can learn from the experts and from each other, has proved very insightful,” says Lenser Anyango of NANHRI.