As part of its on-going commitment to the advancement of human rights in the Turks and Caicos Islands, the TCI Human Rights Commission will continue its participation in the project Building Human Rights Capacity in the UK Overseas Territories.
A workshop, originally scheduled for November last year but postponed due to the passage of hurricane Tomas, has now been rescheduled for January 17th through 21st with the UK trainers holding sessions in Grand Turk and Providenciales.
The project is being sponsored by DFID in partnership with the Commonwealth Foundation, the Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The goals of the workshop are to:
– Increase the commitment by Overseas Territories Governments and partners to an improved human rights agenda
– Increase the awareness and capacity of governments and civil society to address human rights issues in the long term
– Strengthen human rights reporting and monitoring arrangements in accordance with relevant international treaties.
This is the second in a series of proposed workshops to be held. The aim is to provide all participants in the training sessions with the foundation/building blocks about human rights and to address the needs of particular government departments and civil society in order to enable them to apply rights in practice/in their work. The training will seek to address matters that arise in the various Government Departments and other institutions and agencies such as Immigration, Labour, SPICE, the Police, Education, Health, Social Services, Gender Affairs, NGOs, Media, Business/Corporate Community, Statutory Bodies, Youth Affairs, Courts and Civil Society Groups.
Participants will, among other things examine;
– the role of civil society in promoting and protecting human rights
– rights as regards to gender equality, access to justice, immigration and labour rights, and
– how best to encourage civil society to monitor human rights, advocate for greater human rights protection, lobby authorities and use the international machinery for human rights protection.
