Maat concludes the first training workshop for cadres of civil society organizations in southern Upper Egypt

Incorporation of awareness of the UPR into the activities of organizations at the local level. Main outputs

Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights concluded the first training workshop in the framework of "Training program for cadres of civil society organizations to follow up on Egypt's obligations before the universal periodic review mechanism" Which is one of the main components of a project The Universal Periodic Review as a Tool to Improve Public Policies during the Transition, Which is implemented by the Foundation with funding from the European Union over a period of two years.

The training workshop, which will be implemented in two phases during 2016, sought to build the capacity of civil society organizations' cadres in 12 NGOs in southern Upper Egypt governorates on how to communicate with international mechanisms for the protection of human rights, and to follow up on Egypt's implementation of its obligations before the UPR 2014, with the aim of contributing to the project's efforts on The local level, by presenting alternatives and proposals at the level of legislation and policies to help the state fulfill its obligations related to improving the human rights and developmental conditions in Egypt.

The training program, which included practical trainings, working groups and role-playing, raised the awareness of civil society organizations 'cadres on topics related to concepts, classifications and characteristics of human rights, in addition to enabling participants to explore human rights violations in their local communities, increasing participants' knowledge of human rights protection mechanisms and enabling them to analyze obligations The state related to human rights conventions, increasing the participants ’knowledge of the international system of human rights protection mechanisms and enabling them to explore the systems that govern the work of human rights protection mechanisms. Increasing the participants’ awareness of the universal periodic review procedures while introducing the recommendations made to Egypt and Egypt's position on them, enabling the participants to play the role of the Human Rights Council Raising awareness of the procedures for the participation of civil society organizations in the universal periodic review mechanism, and finally enabling the participants to acquire the skill of brief statements to be submitted to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, raising the participants ’awareness of the awareness tools and strengthening the community monitoring of the review results while enabling them to develop a specific action plan for community awareness of the UPR.

The most important outcomes of the training workshop included the commitment of each organization that benefited from the training to integrate awareness of the UPR into the activities of the organizations that they implement at the local level according to the nature of each organization’s work and the specific issues within its framework. The activities that will be implemented during April and May 2016 will target journalists. Media professionals, partner NGOs, university students, women and youth, governorate executive bodies, parliamentarians, and society as a whole at the local level.

The project, which began in January 2016, seeks to strengthen the role of the universal periodic review to improve public policies and reform human rights during the transitional phase in Egypt by actively engaging civil society organizations, activists and media professionals in following up and advocating for the necessary reform of human rights, and adopting new policies compatible with international human rights standards. Based on the 2014 UPR.

More updated news about the project activities is available at the following link:  www.fb.com/UPR.Egypt2016