Amnesty International Nepal hosted an online Write for Rights (W4R) workshop for members of its youth networks and groups on 8 and 9 December, 2020. The workshop, conducted via zoom, aimed at strengthening members’ capacity and discussing innovative ideas for this year’s W4R campaign. The program saw participation from 32 youth members, 38 groups members as well as individual members associated with Amnesty Nepal.
The program commenced with a brief introduction of the W4R campaign by Ashmita Sapkota, Campaigns Coordinator at AI Nepal. She spoke about how the W4R campaign began in 2001 from the Poland section of Amnesty International and has now grown into an integral campaign, not just for Amnesty International but the entire global Human Rights movement. “Many people recognize Amnesty International as a letter-writing organization today because of the W4R campaign,” said Sapkota.
The first session of the online workshop was led by Amnesty Nepal’s Human Rights Education Officer Jesselina Rana who spoke about the basic idea behind the W4R campaign and shared some success stories from the previous year’s efforts. Rana also highlighted the high number of letters submitted by Amnesty Nepal last year which was a result of continuous efforts undertaken by the youth and group members.
The second session was led by Ashmita Sapkota who explained the selection process for the W4R cases. Out of 10 international cases picked by the International Secretariat this year, AI Nepal will be focusing on campaigning for five international and one local case. Sapkota described all the cases in detail and explained how different rights had been violated in each specific case.
Tsering D. Gurung, Media and Communications Coordinator at AI Nepal, led the third session, highlighting the need to move this year’s campaign efforts to the online sphere in the wake of the global pandemic. She ensured active participation of the members present by dividing the meeting into smaller breakout rooms where each participant was asked to share their ideas for the upcoming W4R campaign as well as learnings from the previous years’ efforts.
The final session of the workshop was led by IT Officer Prashant Tripathi, who demonstrated the process of signing online petitions. Nirajan Thapaliya, Director of Amnesty Nepal, concluded the two-hour long program with a short speech encouraging participants to explore new and safe ways of campaigning this year.