A five-day research workshop under the regional human rights research initiative took place in Bangkok recently.
The workshop gathered almost twenty researchers from all over Asia. RWI researchers Radu Mares and Frank Baber, together with Mike Hayes at Mahidol University, presented information on human rights and doing research. The first day also saw a session on gender integration into research, delivered by RWI’s Programme Advisor Sebnem Kenis via video conferencing.
One of the researchers, Mr Khair Mahmud, an assistant professor of Law at Jagannath University Bangladesh, brought up the perspective of environmental protection and human rights in his home country:
Being an academic activist I consider myself obligated to work for the society and environment. I cannot explain my joy and gratefulness to the institute for this opportunity. It was a whole week of direct learning from the international instructors and professors. The workshop really showed me the level of dedication and perseverance I need to achieve the best, and I believe my background will help me to qualify for such initiative.
The workshop included in-depth discussions on research methodologies. Those were explored in depth among the participants and the three mentors during the rest of the week. Another participant, Ms Sophorn Tuy, a librarian for the Royal University of Law and Economics in Phnom Penh, appreciated the ideas that were shared amongst the sessions.
All knowledge resources provided during the training were so useful in using for academic research writing. I like all styles of distribution of all mentors. Especially, Radu and Mike, their presentations styles were so interesting and fantastic. Moreover, Frank had a lot of ideas and examples to explain us,
This initiative is a ten-month project, during which the researchers will get individual mentorship and by end of the year, there will (hopefully) be 18 high quality research papers from Asia to be presented at various forums around the world. The focus of this year’s initiative is the connections between human rights and the environment.