S.Georgia : Report on 2011 Human Rights Awareness Training Programme in the Falkland Islands
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 09.11.2011 (Article Archived on 23.11.2011)

second round of human rights awareness training took place in the Falkland Islands from 19th to 25th July 2011.

Report on 2011 Human Rights Awareness Training Programme in the Falkland Islands

1.         Introduction

A second round of human rights awareness training took place in the Falkland Islands from 19^th to 25^th July 2011.  A wide range of government and public officials, representatives of civil society as well as members of the public participated in the training.  Most sessions were well attended with a strong buy-in from participants.  The overall attendance increased from 154 in the first training round to 237.  This second round of training had a number of new participants as well as those who attended the first round of training.  It also offered open sessions to interested members of the public both in Stanley and at Mount Pleasant[1]. 

The training programme was drawn up in close collaboration with the Attorney General’s Chambers and the project’s coordinating group and was based on feedback from members of the coordinating group and participating government departments.  Members of the coordinating group assisted in the preparations for the training including publicising the training, liaising with participants about the training programme and helping to ensure that the training was tailored to meet the needs of the participants.  The project is very grateful for the assistance of the members of the coordinating group.  The training was delivered by two trainers (rather than one as on the previous occasion), Mrs Lindi Coetzee, Director of Street Law and member of Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA) which is one of the project’s partner organisations  and Mrs Selina Goulbourne, from CLEA.  The Project Coordinator, Ms Rosanna Mesquita also assisted. 

In addition to press coverage prior to the training, the training team gave interviews to the local radio and television stations during the training week.  The team also circulated a press release advertising training sessions to members of public.  The team attended a reception hosted by the Governor which gave the trainers an opportunity to meet participants, Members of Legislative Assembly and other community leaders, as well as those who had helped with the organisation of the training.  

2.         A record of what has been delivered

Over the period of 6 days, the trainers delivered 18 training sessions; the majority were held during the working day with the exception of the two sessions for the teaching staff which were held in the late afternoon to accommodate their school teaching commitments.  (A copy of the training programme is attached.) 

The majority of sessions lasted 3 hours with a break in the middle and all sessions except for the session at Mount Pleasant were held in Stanley.  All participants who had not attended a general introduction to human rights during the previous training round were recommended to attend the rerun of this session before attending the more specialised sessions.  As a result of high level interest in this introductory session on human rights, it was run four times.

The more specialised sessions included looking at the practical application of human rights in relation to participants’ fields of work, human rights in policy making, court remedies, media and human rights, and the role of civil society in protecting rights.  Although these sessions were covered last year, this year’s curriculum went into more depth about the topics and worked through examples and scenarios provided by the participants.  Two new topics, the value of developing a national human rights action plan for the Falklands and writing reports to UN treaty bodies, were also included in the programme.  The table below sets out the full range of topics covered and the number of participants.