Competencies

INTRODUCTION

• Review with participants the text of Commitment V or display the Slides. (See Resources tab.)
• Instruct participants to “translate” Commitment V into simple terms suitable for a youth or lay person. Participants may also create a concise statement in their local dialect.
• Facilitator may demonstrate how to do this by using another commitment as an example.
• Facilitator may also use questions under the Discussion Questions tab to stimulate thought.

ACTIVITY

• Allow time for participants to share their statements with the group.
• Participants may also explain why they chose to write their statements the way that they did.
• Participants may choose to further explain how their statements educate others about protecting women and girls from religious-based practices that encourage or perpetuate discrimination or violence.

CONCLUSION

• Encourage participants to share their translations of Commitment V with family and friends or on social media, where appropriate.

• What are the most important elements in Commitment V?
• How did you decide what elements to include or not include in your translation?

Commitment V: We pledge to ensure non-discrimination and gender equality in implementing this declaration on “Faith for Rights.” We specifically commit to revisit, each within our respective areas of competence, those religious understandings and interpretations that appear to perpetuate gender inequality and harmful stereotypes or even condone gender-based violence. We pledge to ensure justice and equal worth of everyone as well as to affirm the right of all women, girls and boys not to be subjected to any form of discrimination and violence, including harmful practices such as female genital mutilation, child and/or forced marriages and crimes committed in the name of so-called honour.

• Editable Power Point file: Commitment V Slides
• PDF: Commitment V Slides

• The #Faith4Rights modules are flexible and require adaptation by the facilitators before their use. Case studies related to peer-to-peer exercises in the 18 modules need to be selected by the facilitators from within the environment where the learning takes place. The #Faith4Rights toolkit is a prototype methodology that requires contextualization, based on the text of the 18 commitments, context, and additional supporting documents.
• Not all issues raised need to be resolved. This would be an impossible and even a counterproductive target. The aim is rather to enhance critical thinking and communication skills, admitting that some questions could receive many answers, depending on numerous factors.
• Tensions may occur during discussions related to “faith” and “rights.” Most of these tensions are due to human interpretations. Learning sessions are spaces for constructive dialogue in a dynamic process where tensions can be reduced with the help of clear methodologies, including pre-emptive situation analysis and evidence of positive results in areas of intersectionality between faith and rights.
• When preparing the sessions, facilitators need to factor in the profile, age, and backgrounds of participants. Focused attention on the learning objectives can transform tensions into constructive exploration of new ideas.
• Meaningful engagement requires democratically pre-established rules. Facilitators should dedicate time with participants to elaborate these rules together at the outset and act all along the training as their custodians.
• The time frames suggested in this #Faith4Rights toolkit are merely indicative. Facilitators may adapt them freely to suit the needs of their group of participants. The key balance is between respecting the overall time frame while not cutting short a positive exchange momentum.
• To ensure optimal and sustainable benefit, facilitators may create a “training notebook” for participants during their peer-to-peer learning sessions. It would contain a compilation of templates to help participants keep track of what they have learned throughout the program and eventually use this notebook as their personalized follow-up tool.
• When technically feasible, facilitators are also advised to project the module under discussion on screen in order to alternate between discussions thereon and showing the audio-visual materials listed in each module or any other items selected by the facilitator.