The Raoul Wallenberg Institute recently carried out two training workshops under its Zimbabwe Human Rights Capacity Development Programme (2016-2018), financed by Swedish Development Cooperation.
The first training workshop took place on 25-26 September 2018 in Harare and targeted a group of young and emerging leaders taking part in the four phase Professional Training Programme (PTP) on Human Rights IV.
The focus of this third phase of training was for the participants to present their human rights action plans/mini-projects developed under the course of the PTP and receive feedback from facilitators and fellow participants.
Following the workshop, the participants are to revise the action plans/mini-projects and then implement them, both individually and jointly, on behalf of their respective institutions. The submitted action plans/mini-projects deal with critical human rights reform issues such as corruption, youth participation in politics and decision-making, child labour, sexual harassment, among others. The implementation results will be presented in plenary at the phase four activity in November.
The second training workshop was for the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) and took place on 1-4 October 2018 in Harare. The aim of the workshop was to increase the Commission’s knowledge and skills as regards international and national standards on economic social and cultural rights, as outlined in, among other instruments, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Constitution of Zimbabwe.
Practical discussions were also held on how national human rights institutions can work with monitoring the fulfilment of these rights as part of their daily work. This activity was the second in a series of three pilot activities that RWI is organising with the ZHRC, with the aim of increasing staff expertise in international human rights law.
Emily Hanna and Timothy Maldoon, Programme Officers at RWI, were responsible for the workshops.