Since 1980, the Asian Center for the Progress of Peoples (ACPP), has been hosting the project Hotline Asia (HL), which was conceived during the first Asia/Pacific Justice and Peace Consultation in 1979, to respond to cases of injustice.

Every 2 years, the ACPP organizes a workshop for its staff, partners and regional network, to meet, share, discuss, reflect and learn together. Topics have included justice and peace work, international human rights instruments, the Rights-Based Approach to Development and advocacy. The workshops are geared towards enhancing the awareness and involvement of the network on advocacy of human rights and justice and peace issues.

Approaching our 30th year, ACPP finds it significant to reflect on the role of HL and its network, particularly on the effectiveness of our different responses to injustices in our countries and in the region, as well as reflect on, explore and analyze different methodologies and approaches used through the years, in order to renew our commitment to justice and peace; clarify our direction; and identify relevant tools needed for the years ahead. Thus, this year, the workshop will be on different experiences in responding to injustices.

Context:
We realize that in the Asia-Pacific region, there are many justice and peace workers who are doing good work and actively engaged in advocacy or engaged in different responses to injustices in their own countries, in the face of many practical or structural challenges. Some may be new in the field and may not have much experience or exposure to other perspectives or methods which might help to enhance their work. Meanwhile, there are other justice and peace workers who have a wealth of experience on how they have overcome their challenges.

Whether new or experienced in the field, or somewhere in between, the ACPP recognizes that each one's experience is a resource which can benefit each other in terms of knowledge, skills, reflection, refreshing one's commitment, etc. Those less experienced or who are still “searching” can explore and share in the wisdom, analysis and strategies of those who have been actively involved and have overcome challenges, while the sharing of those who are new may give insights on new challenges and renew the commitment of others. Each different context will have its own lesson to share.

The Workshop:
This workshop provides a venue to gather justice and peace workers in the region to share their experiences and different ways of responding to injustices. This workshop aims to inspire participants to do more or explore how they can be more involved in justice and peace in their own context.

The objectives of the workshop are:

• to share, explore and analyze different experiences, methods, approaches to responding to injustices in the region; and
• to renew and clarify the commitment, role and direction of justice and peace workers, as well as clarify plans and identify relevant tools required for justice and peace work.

The workshop will be done in a reflection-sharing-discussion-planning process, where different experiences will be discussed and analyzed together with the context, purpose, rationale, function, and challenges/success.

All participants are required to share their work and experiences on responding to injustices.

Participants:
A maximum of 20 participants will be accommodated, who may be:

• actively involved in advocacy of justice and peace issues;
• expected to do justice and peace work and interested to learn more approaches in responding to injustices; and/or
• interested to do more in terms of justice and peace advocacy in their own contexts.

Resource persons will be from the justice and peace workers network who are actively involved in justice and human rights issues in their own countries.

As the workshop proceedings and all reading materials will be in English, all participants are expected to be sufficiently fluent in English.

Other details:
The workshop will be held on 10-13 October (arrival on October 9th and departure on October 14th) in Bangkok, Thailand.

Due to the nature of the workshop process, all participants are required to attend all 4 full-days of the workshop. Part-time participation will NOT be accepted.

In order to ensure the commitment of all participants in the workshop, participants or their organizations will be responsible for their own international travel expenses, as well as any related local expenses from their own countries. ACPP will NOT provide full subsidy for air travel for any participant.

A limited subsidy of 50% of the airfare to Bangkok may be considered for applicants from selected Southeast Asian and South Asian countries.

ACPP will cover relevant workshop expenses in Bangkok during the workshop days, such as workshop materials, board and lodging.

Deadline of application is on 28 August 2009. Applicants accepted as participants will be required to do some preparatory reading/writing before the programme, and will be contacted with further details by 10 September. Those not contacted by then should assume that their application is not successful.

Application Form: word; pdf