As part of its mission to build the capacity of African human rights and social justice movements, Fahamu develops training materials and runs courses, including by distance learning.
Fahamu provides training to strengthen the capacity of civil society organisations in Africa to promote and protect human rights and to help them become sustainable and effective organisations.
What does the ‘rights-based approach to development’ mean? This short introductory course provides a grounding in the basic principles of human rights. It also introduces participants to the international and regional conventions and instruments which encode human rights. It is one of an integrated collection of courses developed by Fahamu in conjunction with the University of Oxford.
This course aims to develop the skills of conducting and reporting impartial and accurate research into human rights abuses. It will be of benefit to anybody in NGOs and other groups promoting rights-based advocacy or seeking to defend human rights.
It is part of an integrated collection of courses developed by Fahamu in conjunction with the University of Oxford.
Combining the freedom of information campaigning expertise of Article 19 with Fahamu’s extensive experience of developing and running courses, this course is meant for people and organisations in Africa who have an interest in the issue of access to information.
This course is designed for people and organisations grappling with issues of power, politics and exclusion. It goes beyond the first generation of advocacy training to delve more deeply into questions of citizenship, constituency building, social change, gender and accountability.
This course is based on the manual A New Weave of Power, People & Politics: The Action Guide to Advocacy and Citizen Participation by Lisa VeneKlasen and Valerie Miller of Just Associates. The course is one of an integrated collection of courses developed by Fahamu in conjunction with the University of Oxford.
The 1994 genocide in Rwanda provides a telling case study of two quite separate roles for media in a conflict situation. The genocide was among the most appalling catastrophes of the 20th century, and media played a significant part both internally and internationally.
Torture is probably one of the most common forms of human rights violations everywhere. Those held in detention frequently experience torture in many different forms. But it can be prevented. Human rights and other social justice organisations have a critical role to play in preventing torture in places of detention. But to do so effectively, a clear understanding of what is torture and the mechanisms available to prevent it is necessary. This course is designed to provide the necessary skills – and experience – to prevent torture.
Conflict – and especially violent conflict – is common in many parts of the world. Violent conflict not only hinders human development and security, it also reverses many of the gains that society may have achieved over many years. Taking action before conflict has become violent is generally more effective than taking action during violent conflict. But to prevent the development of violent conflict means addressing the underlying causes – both immediate and structural. This course is designed to enable participants to develop effective conflict prevention strategies that can allow constructive dialogue between contending views without the need to resort to the use of violence.
Probably the greatest challenge to building organisations that are both sustainable and effective in achieving their goals is how to develop leadership and management skills throughout the organisation. Leadership is often seen as the role of a single charismatic person, whereas effective organisations comprise teams who understand both how to get the most from their members and how to be strategic in coping with a constantly changing external environment.
This course is designed to help people use the internet for advocacy. It will be of particular interest to non-governmental organisations and grassroots groups, trainers, activists, organisers and researchers working in the field of human rights and advocacy.
The aim of this course is make financial management accessible and useful. It will be of particular interest to non-finance staff: project officers, programme managers, senior managers and board members of not-for-profit organisations.
This course will provide participants with all they need to know to become effective fundraisers. It will be of interest to anybody who works in organisations that do not have professional fundraisers on their staff. Participants do not need to be specialist fundraisers to use the techniques explored on the course. Indeed, it is designed for those who have to take responsibility for raising funds while doing many other things.
This course aims to develop participants’ writing skills to support their advocacy work. It delivers a comprehensive approach to the skills of effective writing. It is particularly aimed at people who find writing a chore, who have something important to say but cannot express it clearly, or who just want some help in polishing their writing skills.
It will be of particular interest to anybody planning to produce a research report, thesis, book or book chapter, advocacy document, paper for publication, essay – or any other substantial piece of written work.
This short very practical course was developed to help the staff of not-for-profit organisations write effective grant proposals. Suprisingly few people have ever been trained to write proposals, yet proposal writing has become an important feature of life in a not-for-profit organisation. Fortunately, the skills are easily acquired.