In May, CCIG partnered with the Marist Foundation for International Solidarity (FMSI) and Misean Cara to offer an online training program on Engaging in Human Rights Advocacy Projects to participants from 14 countries across Latin America. The program was attended by Marist Brothers and others working in Marist schools, centers, and projects in areas where children’s living conditions are of particular concern. The goal of the course was to train participants in the promotion and protection of children’s rights at the local and international level through intensive training on drafting and measuring the impact of human rights advocacy projects. Presentations were conducted primarily by CCIG Secretary General Maria D’Onofrio, as well as by Andrea Rossi of FMSI and Patricia Ynoñan Garcia of Misean Cara.

The training consisted of four sessions. Module I centered on the importance of human rights advocacy projects and how the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) can be used to advance children’s rights. In Module II, participants identified key challenges to drafting a human rights advocacy project and discussed strategies to overcome them, such as methods for writing project proposals including effective indicators, and data collection. Training Module III focused on how to measure the impact of advocacy actions prior to the UPR session, including short-term effects, through the assessment of lobbying actions, and the long-term effects, through the monitoring of human rights implementation. It introduced the ad hoc advocacy assessment tool employed by the   in previous human rights advocacy projects and proposed to the participants to apply it in a practical exercise. Module IV provided participants with the opportunity to present the results of the practical exercises they completed previously during the program and involved time for feedback, discussion, and questions.

The rationale of this capacity building activity is based on the acknowledgment that the inclusion of an advocacy component in traditional development projects aimed at a better implementation of human rights has become increasingly essential. At the same time, the inclusion of such a component in traditional human rights development projects presents an intrinsic challenge linked to the difficulty of assessing the impact of such advocacy actions on national human rights policies and thus, ultimately, on the enjoyment of human rights at the local level.

Through this course, which combined both instructional presentations and practical exercises, participants explored the importance of conducting human rights advocacy projects and developed skills for meaningful and effective contribution to the advancement of human rights on the ground. Participants expressed their appreciation for the program, noting the relevance of the content to their work, the usefulness of the practical skills they developed, and the importance of having training spaces available for knowledge-sharing and capacity-building.