POVERTY IS A VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

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Forum for Women in Democracy was honored to be part of the Human Rights Based approach organized by Action Aid Uganda. The training was a foundational course to introduce the importance of using the human rights lens during advocacy. Prudence Nyamishana (Communications officer), Sarah Nakintu (Field Officer Mityana) and Annet Namwaya (Field officer Busia) represented FOWODE.

The various sessions stirred the participants to do introspection on how they can change their generation and the communities in which they operate.  

From this training, the participants realized that poverty is a human rights violation. This notion was disputed until; the trainer explained that poverty is a result of unequal power relations because those who are in power have not helped the poor to come out of their poverty. Therefore those that are living in power-the duty bearers have an obligation to ensure that they take care of those that are living in poverty.

This doesn’t mean that those rights holders will do nothing about it- they have a responsibility of holding those in power accountable therefore, it is the role of civil society to empower these people to demand for what belongs to them rather than fold their hands and wait for thin

Sadly, in many instances, the political leaders have gone ahead to even own the people, they call them “My people” so when they are campaigning to enter into political office, they make the construction of the roads, medical centers, and access to education sound like a favor.

There are four categories of people in power relations that every human rights organization needs to know when implementing programmes as illustrated by Arthur Larok, the Executive Director Action Aid Uganda; the powerful comfortable, comfortable powerless, powerless uncomfortable, and the powerful confortable- Knowledge of these power relations helps to know who to engage.

During the experience sharing session, FOWODE was granted an opportunity to share the Village Budget Club (VBC) model. The fact that this model empowers the rights holders to demand for accountability hence better services, amazed the participants that pledged to duplicate this model in their various organisations.

This training awakened the participants to realities that stirred them to draw action plans. Although FOWODE has been implementing the activities that have the human rights component, the need to emphasize the human rights was key. Consequently, FOWODE intends to integrate the HRBA in all her programmes as she seeks to promote gender equality in all areas of decision-making through advocacy, training, research and publications.
Source: FOWODE archives
For more information of the story do not hesitate to contact: prudence.nyamishana@fowode.org
                                                        

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