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Human Rights In My Heart. Using the Human Rights Framework to Drive Your Passion for Advocacy & Change. Dazon Dixon Diallo, MPH SisterLove, Inc. USA PWN – Southern Summit Fort Walton Beach, FL March 7, 2012. Where do Human Rights Begin?.
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Human Rights In My Heart Using the Human Rights Framework to Drive Your Passion for Advocacy & Change Dazon Dixon Diallo, MPH SisterLove, Inc. USA PWN – Southern Summit Fort Walton Beach, FL March 7, 2012
Where do Human Rights Begin? “In small places, close to home, so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person, the neighborhood he lives in, the factory, farm, or office where he worked. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.” Eleanor Roosevelt, 1958
Positive Women Leaders Have… • Hindsight • Foresight • Vision • Wisdom • Experience • Moral Authority • Collective Voice Heightened National Response – CDC at Morehouse School of Medicine, 2008
Positive Women Know Issues • Disclosure • Prevention • Treatment and Care • Stigma & Discrimination • Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights • Human Rights • Advocacy • Policy & Research Stand Against AIDS – C2EA Caravan to US Presidential Debate - 2008
Common Experiences • Gender Inequities • Marginalization • Low (absent) political representation • Relationships with High Risk Men • Intersections with Violence & Trauma • Inclusion as a Priority Population • Economic Dependence • Sexual Identity & Expression
Positive Women’s Retreat St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 1993
HIV/AIDS & Human Rights • Human rights are fundamental to any response to HIV/AIDS • Human rights and public health share the common goal of promoting and protecting all individuals’ well-being • HIV/AIDS rates are disproportionately high among groups who experience lack of human rights protections
Violation Paradigm - an Exercise • Describe an experience when your human rights were violated • Describe an experience when you may have violated someone else’s rights • Describe an experience when your rights were protected • Describe an experience when you protected someone else’s rights
Human Rights are universal legal guarantees protecting individuals and groups against actions that interfere with fundamental freedoms and human dignity.
Human Rights Characteristics • International Standards • Legally protected • Focus on the dignity of the human being • Oblige states (governments) and state actors • Cannot be waived or taken away • Interdependent, Interrelated and universal
Civil Political Economic Social Cultural Sexual Developmental Environmental Immigrant/Refugee Indigenous People The Human Rights Framework
HR & HIV – Working Together • Accountability • Advocacy • Approaches to Programming
HIV/AIDS & HR: Accountability • Rights that are HIV/AIDS Relevant • Non-discrimination & Equality • Health • Liberty & Security of Person • Privacy • Seek, receive & impart information • Marry & found a family • Work • Freedom of movement, association & expression
Government’s Obligations • To Respect a Right • To Protect a Right • To Fulfill a Right
HIV/AIDS & HR: Advocacy • A process that is aimed at mobilizing community action on an issue of concern to change attitudes, actions, policies and laws or the betterment of people affected by the issue
Select Issue Research/ Analyze Issue Develop objectives Identify Targets Identify Resources Identify Allies Create Action Plan Implement, monitor & evaluate HIV/AIDS & HR: Advocacy Framework
HIV/AIDS & HR: Approaches to Programming • A rights-based approach implies being guided by the needs and rights of the community while simultaneously empowering those same communities to broaden their participation and strengthen their relationships with law, policy makers, and partner organizations.
HIV/AIDS & HR: Approaches to Programming • Central Principles • Non-discrimination • Equality • Participation
Tell Your Story • Talk about a time when you personally or professionally engaged in changing the way things happen, or the way things are done, or the way people responded to a change. • What happened to you? What did it feel like? What was your most important take-away or lesson learned?
HIV/AIDS in the South • Deaths in South rose 10 percent 2001-2006 • 40 percent of all American PWLAs • Nine of the 10 metro areas • Leading in AIDS cases and rates among people of color • Less federal funding than other regions Southern States Manifesto: Update 2008, July 2008
What is Advocacy? • All activity that moves an agenda towards completion of a specific program or goal • Positive action that results in change
Effective Advocacy • Advocacy can: • Target decision-makers, leaders, policy-makers and others in influential positions • Take place at community, national and international levels • Encompass a broad range of activities • Effective advocacy is NOT necessarily controversial or adversarial, but rather aims to generate broad support and sustainable change
Forms of Advocacy • State demands for remedy and offer clear options • Create a demand for change among your colleagues • Make your voices heard • Take action that brings broad attention to the issue or policy of concern
Why are Social Service Orgs Sites for Social Change? • Trusted community institutions • Reach low-income & marginalized communities • Provide infrastructure • Mission driven staff (both paid and unpaid) • Safe space to recognize & address issues
Why ASOs in Particular? • Deep connection to grassroots base • Recognize the intersections of the different pieces of people’s lives • Work on wedge issues often marginalized or ignored by other groups. • HIV affected led movement advocating for change on issues that specifically affect our communities
Examples of Advocacy (2) • Provide opportunities for people living with HIV/AIDS to tell their stories • Celebrate survivors • Generate publicity and raise awareness with outreach and art • Use the web to educate, organize, mobilize and advocate
Eight Key Steps in Advocacy • These steps will be discussed in detail during this session • Bring like-minded people together • Get the facts • Gather and analyze information on the issue • Identify goals and objectives • Decide how you will measure progress or success • Decide whom you are trying to influence, and how • Be strategic
Eight Key Steps in Advocacy (2) • Build alliances and coalitions • Whom do you need to join you? • Identify the methods that are appropriate and most likely to get results • Create an action plan, including timing • Remember that advocacy is dynamic • Steps need to be repeated and reviewed over time
The Many, Many Voices • International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS • U.S. Positive Women’s Network • SMART – New York USA • Positive Women’s Network – South Africa • The Women’s Collective • Athena Network
2020 Leading Women’s Society & Awards: • Leadership Experience local, regional, national, international • 10 years or more (20 for the Award) living with HIV/AIDS • Full Disclosure of Status • Brain Trust with Diversity of Experiences • Mentoring new and young HIV + Women • Setting/Advocating an Agenda for this decade • Focused on Results and Outcomes
Juanita says: “Give [us] a voice and a platform for that voice…Give a safe place to let their voices be heard and validate them. Positive people are not taken seriously, and positive women are taken even less seriously. People think positive people are way down on the totem pole. We need positive women’s voices to continue to fight the stigma. How do we do that? We tell our stories and reflect each other.”
“I am not the enemy, I am the answer. If you silence my voice, then what happens to my behavior?”
Change Women’s LivesChange the Epidemic Using Reproductive Justice and Prevention Justice to End HIV and AIDS
Contact Me! Follow Us! Dázon Dixon Diallo, MPH Founder/President SisterLove Inc 3709 Bakers Ferry Rd, SW Atlanta, Georgia 30331 Office: 404-505-7777 Email: ddiallo@sisterlove.org Website:www.sisterlove.org www.sisterwisdom.org