The Active Learning Centre: Working for Democracy and Rights

Active Learning Centre working for democracy and rights

News

British Council Conference to Raise Awareness on Women's Rights in Middle East and North Africa

Between Sunday 4th and Tuesday 6th March Susan Dalgety and Kate Phillips represented the Active Learning Centre at the British Council sponsored regional meeting of women from the Middle East and North African countries. Kate contributed a keynote paper on progress and how it was achieved by women in Scotland and Southern Africa, Susan on the organisation of Zero Tolerance campaign and the subsequent legislation and policies of the Scottish Parliament. Maha Hamid Raham Alsakban from a human rights centre in Iraq talked about the problems women face and one of her colleagues spoke about Islamic approaches to women's leadership, from Tunisia Meriem Ben Salem talked about how the internet has been used for campaigning. Zahra Langhi from Platform for Peace in Libya spoke about the lack of women in power in the transitional institutions despite their role in the conflict and the urgent need to train and support women to stand in the elections in June.

Reports to follow

The Women’s Parliamentary Caucus of Malawi and the Active Learning Centre

A practical programme funded by the Scottish Government now in Year 2

Two of our consultants, Danny Phillips and Susan Dalgetty, are working with cross party women MPs in Malawi to support them to carry out consultations throughout their constituencies , to work with the caucus to focus on key areas of concern that arise from this constituency work, and to work with the MPs to help them to effect policy in the key areas of concern.

The project is going very well positive around 40 of the 43 women MPS are taking part. And the Caucus has clearly grown in confidence since we started working with them. The majority of MPs are participating fully and with energy.

To date over 4000 people (mostly women) have been consulted in their constituencies. Using this evidence from their constituency activities the Women's' Caucus have developed four task forces to re-focus their work around the issues raised.

They have agreed that they should have no more than three objectives per task force and that they should be achievable, not simply aspirational.

No-one is under any illusions that this work will achieve miracles - but the MPs are all going into it with the hope of making some impact to improve the life of poorer women and improve the effectiveness of the women MPs, therefore strengthen the democratic process. At the very least the Caucus is now focusing on policy delivery and service improvement and are making the clear link between the democratic process and policy delivery and meeting the MDGs.

We also hope this work with go some way to improving the retainment of women in all parties in the next election.

Malawi Rights Advice project

We have now distributed Rights information leaflets and published 4 briefing sheets. A further two briefing sheets are planned. A further training for paralegals took place in Dedza in late November and a training for Mangochi will take place in the New Year. This will bring our number of paralegals up to 90. Each centre now has 4 outreach services and as can be seen from the statistics below the number of clients is rising.

Cases dealt with in RACs in Dedza and Mangochi January – Nov 2011.
Month Male Female Total
January 11 11 22
February 12 19 31
March 24 28 52
April 16 24 40
May 29 31 60
June 36 58 94
July 26 55 81
August 49 78 127
September 82 68 150
October 83 79 162
November 77 81 158
Total 445 432 877

Women in UK parliaments

Revised July 2011

This handbook by Catriona Burness on women and parliaments in the UK is exactly the kind of background information we need to assess where we are and what needs to be done. It will be of interest to academics, teachers and students but we also want to make it available to political activists without whom we would not have arrived where we are today and a new generation of equal rights campaigners whose energies are still needed to push the case for maintaining and improving women’s position in the future.

All of the women elected to Westminster and the devolved chambers are clearly listed here along with a series of introductory essays which place women’s representation in the context of wider political movements.

Making representative democracy truly representative is an important campaign in its own right but the positive affects that scrutiny of budgets, policy and legislation from a women’s perspective, has on social welfare and poverty questions is of great significance to the wider community.

Women and Parliaments revised July 2011 Women and Parliaments revised July 2011

18th July 2011

Adobe PDF

Flipbook Version

Rights in Ethiopia

This project provides rights advice, information and legal aid to poor communities and began in October 2008. It has been funded by the British Department for International Development and implemented through a partnership with the Centre for Human Rights in Addis Ababa University.

The aim was to raise awareness of legal rights, provide information and support to seek redress. The advice centre serves communities in Addis Ababa, Hawassa, Adama and the surrounding rural areas.

The project opened the three centres, trained paralegals and supported them to give advice to the public. Radio programmes were used to run campaigns and advertise advice services.

Each centre is run by a co-ordinator and a team of trained volunteers supported by a local committee of community representatives. Casework records provide evidence of gaps in the law and it’s implementation and inform local campaigns.

Domestic Violence Domestic Violence

Briefing Sheet No: 1

2011

PDF Format
Employment Law Employment Law

Briefing Sheet No: 2

2011

PDF Format
Human trafficking Human trafficking

Briefing Sheet No: 3

2011

PDF Format
Land Law Land Law

Briefing Sheet No: 4

2011

PDF Format

News from The Community Human Rights Centre in Bamenda

May 2010

Laura Anyola Tufon, one of Cameroon’s National Commissioners for Human Rights and Freedoms came to Glasgow in 2008 as one of our Chevening Fellows. Whilst in Scotland she took an interest in the Govan Law Centre. Active Learning Centre supported Board Chair, Mike Dailly, who volunteered to visit Cameroon to work with Laura to help her to canvas support for a pilot Citizen's Empowerment Project In Cameroon.

The project they developed has now completed it's first year. COMHURIC has offered a rights advice service to poor and vulnerable people in and around Bamenda, listening to complaints, offering advice and taking cases to court. Complaints include; domestic violence, child abuse, women’s rights, rights of people with disabilities, land disputes and property rights, including inheritance.

The centre also conducts education activities with poor rural families on the dangers of trafficking their women and children. In the urban areas they have held education sessions with young people in schools, petty traders in the markets, law enforcement officers and members of the judiciary.

Laura can be justly proud of what she has started!

An Annual Report Of The Community Human Rights Centre (Comhuric) Bamenda An Annual Report Of The Community Human Rights Centre (Comhuric) Bamenda

June 2009 - May 2010

Microsoft Word Format

Women in Power, Conference Report

March 22nd 2010

Making Power Work For Women Conference

Professor Ishita Mukhopadhyay, Catriona Burness, Bertha Sefu, Christina McKelvie and Danny Phillips pose with Vice Chair of Active Learning Centre Kathy McNeil

It is widely thought that women have a different approach to social and welfare policy, one reason why women in power appears as one of the world’s poverty goals. But do women really have more interest in poverty and welfare questions?

This year we commissioned research to look at how an initially ‘mainly manly’ Scottish Constitutional Convention’ led to a call for ‘fifty/fifty’ women and men and the eventual impact of women ministers on post-devolution Scotland.(two pamphlets can be downloaded below)

Making Power Work For Women Conference

All the main Scottish political parties (except for the Conservatives) were representatives at our conference to discuss women in power, alongside churches, charities, unions, equalities workers, retired people, and students. Over 50 (mostly female) participants heard several perspectives.

Danny Phillips and Susan Dalgety presented research on female ministers in the Holyrood administrations from 1999-2007. Former Labour minister Johann Lamont, MSP, spoke of the ground-breaking challenges faced by women ministers.

Maria Fyfe, retired Labour MP for Glasgow Maryhill, and Elspeth Attwooll, retired Liberal Democrat MEP for Scotland, joined Catriona Burness to discuss the hard-fought campaign to get more women into the Scottish Parliament whilst Nationalist MSP Christina McKelvie gave the current SNP-led Scottish Government position.

Making Power Work For Women Conference

India amended its Constitution in 1994 to reserve one-third of seats in panchayats and municipalities for women. Professor Ishita Mukhopadhyay of the University of Calcutta presented her findings on the achievements of women in local office in West Bengal.

Finally the conference heard from Bertha Sefu who managed the 50:50 campaign in Malawi in 2009, which saw women winning a record 42 parliamentary seats.

The message was that political tradition and party make it difficult but when women do break through they can and do bring a different perspective to poverty and welfare questions. As Danny Phillips said in his BBC radio interview (see link below) Scottish women ministers had different life experiences and were informed by different political networks so yes there was a real difference in their approach to welfare questions.

In Search of 50/50

A Scottish Perspective on Women and Parliament

This new research by Catriona Burness brings an historical perspective to the debate about women's representation and explains the circumstances in which women came to be so much better represented in Holyrood.

In Search of 50/50 In Search of 50/50

A Scottish Perspective on Women and Parliament

2010

PDF Format

What have women members of the Scottish Parliament achieved?

Our research suggests that more women in parliament led to more women friendly social policies. Yet progress is in danger of being lost, if Scotland’s political parties do not make a genuine effort to recruit more women candidates for safe and target seats in parliament and local government.

Parties may have made progress but other powerful sections of Scottish society, the media and civil service have a way to go.

Westminster’s cross-party Speaker’s conference on equality of representation suggests UK political parties improve the representation of women at the 2010 or be forced to adopt obligatory quotas for women.

Research by Danny Phillips and Susan Dalgety gives a new insight into the impact on policy development and delivery by the women ministers in the Scottish government (1999-2007).

Download our report now!

Women in power Women in power

The impact of women ministers on post-devolution Scotland

(1999 – 2007)

PDF Format
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