Our Key Message: “Civil Society Makes a Huge Contribution to Our Societies and Human Rights are an Essential Right”
As part of a project in 2020-2022 with the I4C MENA Hub, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) coordinated with partners in Morocco, Bahrain and Iraq and the project team to launch the ‘We Act Together’ campaign with a key message that “civil society makes a huge contribution to our societies, and that human rights are an essential right.” The campaign has three levels of focus that are based on online and offline campaigning tactics and methods. The three levels are: international, regional and national.
The Campaign’s Advisory team includes: SimSim-Participation Citoyenne, HUMENA, GCHR, the I4C MENA Hub. The national partners are the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights (IOHR) and SimSim-Participation Citoyenne in Morocco.
As part of an advocacy campaign, we are using new tactics in supporting MENA human rights defenders in their work and in responding to civic space constraints in the region. These tools and tactics include building effective counter narratives to the dominant, government-led negative perceptions created around CSOs’ work among MENA communities, in part by using content on their achievements and success stories through a regional campaign.
Mobilizing MENA people to act together and make the case for activists has a huge impact on what campaigning and mobilisation can look like in the region.
The campaign aims to inspire people to act together towards empowering civil society activists and their organizations in addition to defending civil and human rights for all. We are designing people-powered, on and offline campaigns, working with and leveraging the support of a diverse range of influencers, as creating awareness of the work of civil society will help encourage citizens to take actions in solidarity with us.
