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Workshop on Advocacy organized in Bosnia-Herzegovina

July 12, 2013

The Global Network of Religions for Children (GNRC) in Europe together with the GNRC Committee of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Youth Centre Future organized a workshop on “Advocacy and its use to contribute to the eradication of child poverty”. The workshop took place in VogošÄ‡a (Sarajevo district) between the 6th and the 8th of July and welcomed twenty participants coming from different parts of the country.

This workshop was implemented in the framework of the new initiative “Mobilizing Faith-Based Resources to End Child Poverty” launched by Arigatou International during the Global Network of Religions for Children (GNRC) Fourth Forum. Considering the three structural causes of poverty highlighted during the fourth forum and present worldwide; namely Corruption and Poor Governance, War and Violence and Unequal distribution of Resources, the GNRC Europe decided to set up a strategy on Advocacy as a main component to contribute to the eradication of poverty affecting children in Europe. It is in this context that a workshop was organized in Sarajevo.

During this three days workshop, twenty participants coming from different regions of the country and with different religious background gathered and worked together towards the objective of creating a national plan of Advocacy to be implemented in the next 6 months. The participants were introduced to the themes of Poverty, Child poverty, Child Rights, Advocacy Strategies and Resource Management and used the skills gained to build two projects that will be implemented in the next six months.

The facilitators used methodologies coming from different resources such as the Learning to Live Together Manual, the Compass Manual (Council of Europe), and different methodologies known by the facilitators from their different fields of expertise. By discovering the mechanisms of poverty and its relations to Child Rights, the participants discovered a way to approach child poverty with tools such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to advocate for the rights and well-being of children in Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere.

Expectations and Challenges of the participants at the beginning of the workshop

The GNRC Europe will work together with the office of Arigatou International in Nairobi to ensure a follow-up of the projects built during this workshop and support the participants in the implementation of these.

“I really liked the group of people who were participants, and trainers were amazing too. I have to say that the workshop was very interesting and trainers gave their maximum in order to explain us the topic in the most understandable way. The workshop was very interactive and that's positive because we were included in all parts of the workshop. Each participant was free to give his/hers own opinion and that was good because we all were learning from each other. To conclude, these workshops were really interesting and I learned a lot!” Ms. Emina Adilovic, a participant of the workshop

Participants presenting and sharing a 'Diamong Ranking' of a set of 'Protective Rights' of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

Participants learning about themselves and others Participants and facilitators in the closing session of the workshop.

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Workshop on Advocacy organized in Bosnia-Herzegovina

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