Peer-to-Peer Activity: Linking the Dots
Overview
Participants identify and discuss the connections between the issues surrounding minority rights.
Competencies
- Participants will articulate connections they identify between issues surrounding faith and minority rights.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Discussion Questions
Resources
Facilitator Tips
Faith Quotes
Step-by-Step Instructions
INTRODUCTION
- The facilitator can separate participants into small groups if appropriate or do this exercise with the entire group. See Facilitator Tips.
- The facilitator should begin by explaining that the aim of this exercise is not to resolve all issues surrounding minority rights but rather to highlight the interdependence and intersectionality.
ACTIVITY and DISCUSSION
- The facilitator may choose from the following questions to start conversation:
- How well are religious minorities protected, especially in comparison to persons belonging to national or ethnic and linguistic minorities?
- Are there other minorities that are not covered by the 1992 Declaration?
- The facilitator should try to avoid discussion derailing into too many related subjects.
- Participants should be encouraged to see the big picture while focusing on one element at a time in the discussion.
- Participants discuss their ideas as a group and write down their thoughts in their notebook.
CONCLUSION
If desired, the facilitator may share examples showing that minority discrimination has never been limited to one or some regions, but extends to the whole world.
Discussion Questions
- How well are religious minorities protected, especially in comparison to persons belonging to national or ethnic and linguistic minorities?
- Are there other minorities that are not covered by the 1992 Declaration?
Resources
Facilitator Tips
Participants should use this activity to identify issues related to human rights and gender equality and not try to find solutions to these issues.
Additional Tips:
- 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 acting 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 timeframe 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 programme and eventually use this notebook as their personalised 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 themselves.
Faith Quotes
- “A man should respect his wife more than he respects himself and love her as much as he loves himself.” (Talmud, Yebamot, 62,b)
- “Never will I allow to be lost the work of any one among you, whether male or female; for you are of one another.” (Qu’ran 3, 195)
- “O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another.” (Quran 49:13)
- “In the image of God He created him male and female. He created them.” (Genesis 1, 27)
- “The best among you is he who is best to his wife.” (Hadith)
- “It is a woman who is a friend and partner for life. It is woman who keeps the race going. How may we think low of her of whom are born the greatest. From a woman a woman is born: none may exist without a woman.” (Guru Granth Sahib, p. 473)
- “The world of humanity is possessed of two wings – the male and the female. So long as these two wings are not equivalent in strength the bird will not fly. Until womankind reaches the same degree as man, until she enjoys the same arena of activity, extraordinary attainment for humanity will not be realized” (‘Abdu’l-Baha)
- “A comprehensive, holistic and effective approach to capacity-building should aim to engage influential leaders, such as traditional and religious leaders […]” (Joint general recommendation No. 31 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women/general comment No. 18 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on harmful practices)