DURATION: 3 - 5 days

The training course is modelled on the HURIDOCS (HURIDOCS: Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems, International, based in Geneva, Switzerland is a human rights network that develop tools and techniques for human rights documentation and information handling)method/philosophy of human rights training.

The type of training is practical and targeted towards the work and needs of documentalists and information workers in human rights organisations.

OBJECTIVES

• To provide specialised training on human rights documentation and systematic handling of information to a selected group of human rights workers, enabling them to act as trainers in their respective regions in future, in order to achieve a multiplier effect;

• To help organisations becoming more objective when recording information;

• To create a common understanding of human rights terminology;

• To introduce trainees to a computerised software package in use for the recording and dissemination of human rights violations;

• To provide a venue for the exchange of experiences in the field of human rights documentation.

Human rights violations will be examined and international methods of documenting human rights violations will be examined. Training on principles of documentation and information handling will take place especially in terms of looking at classifying information and developing an effective, reliable and progressive system of documentation. This training is aimed at building capacity to ensure that organisations have the skills to accurately document and present human rights issues. It will also upgrade their information handling skills and for the exchange of human rights information within their respective areas.

PROGRAMME

The programme is focused on methods and techniques for human rights information handling, rather than on human rights in general. It includes sessions dealing with the role of information for the protection and promotion of human rights, computerised information systems, the use of tools such as Standard Formats and databases for human rights documentation, electronic mail, networking and communication. Considerable time is given to hands-on practice on computers.

CAPACITY BUILDING

HURISA believes that human rights are best protected and promoted with the strengthening of a broad human rights movement which has as a major component NGOs with sufficient capabilities to carry out their mandates. As a human rights training institute, HURISA is committed to contributing to the capacity-building efforts of the human rights community.

HURISA's specific role in the capacity-building process lies in improving access to and the dissemination of human rights information through more effective, appropriate and compatible methods and techniques of information handling. HURISA recognises that we now find ourselves in an age of tremendous advances in information and communication technologies, which we need to master to aid us in our human rights work, at the same time conscious that the technologies to be applied should be appropriate and responsive.

HURISA recognises the diversity of its constituency, but will give priority to the needs of underprivileged CBOs and NGOs, as well as government institutions, particularly Chapter Nine Institutions. (Chapter Nine Institutions: Institutions set up in terms of Chapter Nine of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa to promote and protect human rights)

TRAINING MODULES

The following modules are used either as an individual topic or combined to form a topic:

Human Rights and Information

Information and Communications Technology

Documentation

Specific Tools and Techniques