The Hague, 14 August 2012

About 40 participants from minorities as diverse as Assyria, Afrikaners, Hmong, Chittagong Hill Tracts and Khmer Khrom took part in a three-day human rights training held at the Clingendael Netherlands Institute for International Relations, from 8 to 10 August 2012 with support from the Haella Stichting and the Clingendael.

The training brought together UNPO Member Youth from a wide range of nations and backgrounds alongside young professionals in the Netherlands. The participants had the opportunity to work alongside representatives of Dutch youth civil society, exchange their personal and professional experiences, learn and develop a mutual understanding of Human Rights and advocacy, and to build an international network for today and into the future.

The theme of this year’s SpeakOut! was Digital Democracy and participants gained valuable understanding of the use of Internet, media and communications in Human Rights advocacy. Among other speakers, Mr. Jochem de Groot from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Human Rights department gave a presentation on the use of Internet in promoting Human Rights. In addition, volunteers and professionals from Global Human Rights Defence, the United Network of Young Peacebuilders and the CDA political party provided trainings on the issues of advocacy, negotiations and communications.

SpeakOut! consists of comprehensive trainings that draw on the expertise of leading Netherlands-based human rights organizations in order to provide participants with insights into the best practices of networking, advocacy, media, mediation and Internet indispensable to support peaceful civic and political activism of marginalized peoples.

Now running in its fourth year, SpeakOut! emerged from the need identified by UNPO to provide training to youth activists from some of the most marginalized communities in the world.  Building on the UNPO’s twenty years of experience within the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations and its advocacy at institutions such as the European Parliament, SpeakOut! aims to empower new generations and allow them to pass these skills to people in their surroundings.  

More information about SpeakOut! is available from the UNPO website:

http://www.unpo.org/article/14389

Note to editors

The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) is an international, nonviolent, and democratic membership organization founded in 1991. Its members are indigenous peoples, minorities, and unrecognised or occupied territories who have joined together to protect and promote their human and cultural rights, to preserve their environments, and to find nonviolent solutions to conflicts which affect them.

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UNPO Secretariat

Tel.: +31(0)70 3646504

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Laan van Meerdervoort 70

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