Blog about pluralism and human rights. After a hectic drive through a traffic-filled Jakarta, Gerdien and I arrived at ELSAM and spoke to director Indri Aswati and Ikhana Indah (training officer) about their work and about the event they are organising for today. Today is Human Rights Day and ELSAM has organised a large event for youth ranging from 15-20 years old in Jakarta.
A stage has been created for youth to assemble, make music and talk about values. ELSAM believes that it is effective to promote human rights values among this group -- often being other values than what they are subjected to on a daily basis. If you see violence all around you or if you have experienced domestic violence, or violence or intimidation as a result of different ethnic or religious values, then you are more likely to copy that behaviour. By introducing other values and the concept of pluralism, ELSAM hopes to offer youth and the larger public a different perspective and alternative (non-violent, non-aggressive) ways of interacting and sharing the same spaces in society.
That is the bigger picture. What happens at grass roots level, for example?
Women farmers
Ikhana Indah was involved recently in a sensitising programme for women farmers. This involved two trainings among the women farmer community in order to better equip them for speaking up in cases of domestic violence and child right abuse. The trainings informed the women about the human rights and laws in place to protect them and thus encouraged them to feel stronger and be aware of their position and ability to voice their concerns and stand up for their constitutional rights.
Local law-making
Indri Aswati gives another example: that of a sensitising training programme for staff of a mayor’s office in Kalimantang, It focuses on the local law-making process and positioning human rights therein. In the example she relates, the mayor was open to the idea and embraced it, thus dedicating time and staff to join the educational traning programme on human rights. And the result is great: the mayor and his staff are now developing a guideline for incorporating human rights into the local law-making process.
How has ELSAM grown since it was established in 1993?
The activities started from the ground dealing with individual cases of human rights abuse and preparing recommendations for adaptations in policy issues. The work was very focused albeit on a from case to case basis. Now ELSAM has grown into a more solid organisation that identifies incidents of human rights abuse, investigating the circumstances around that and then developing activities in order to promote other values in the target groups that are identified. The issues ELSAM now deals with are broader in scope and are relevant to a larger group of the public. A better balance has been struck in order to be effective in influencing the law-making process as well as outreaching to larger groups in society with advocacy events, training modules and sensitising programmes.
Human rights day
This evening we will go to the human rights event for Jakartan youth and join in!
Marie-Anne Stam - van Leeuwen
Programme Officer Development Education, Hivos
Gerdien ten Cate
Communication officer, Hivos
MyHivos for more blogs and people
