The Palestinian NGO's Network (PNGO) concluded, on Thursday, four training workshops on advocating and e-advocating, as a part of the project "Enhancing Civil Society role in achieving a unified legal system in the oPt" in partnership with Rule of Law and Access to Justice Programme/UNDP.
The project aimed at deepening and boosting ties and mutual understanding between male and female participants and familiarizing them with the concept of advocacy and the effective use of e-advocacy.
The workshops involved 80 male and female NGOs employees, to enrich their knowledge, strengthen their abilities and improve their skills in organizing advocacy and e-advocacy campaigns, in order to involve them later in advocacy campaigns that will be carried out as a part of the project to unify the Palestinian legal system.
The trainees were divided into 4 groups; each group included 20 male and female participants. They were familiarized with the concepts of lobbying and advocacy, and advocacy campaigns' strategies. Moreover, they have been trained to execute advocacy and e-advocacy campaigns.
The workshop included a range of purposeful activities including ways to use social media to advocate for various issues relating to the Palestinian society, and practical activities to use the electronic advocacy tools.
Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO's Network (PNGO), pointed out that the workshops organized as a part of a project aiming to strengthen the NGO's role to achieve unified Palestinian legal system.
He said, "the training workshops strived to train the participants on building coalitions and networks and familiarize them with advocacy through carrying out advocacy campaigns."
Fidaa Fayyad, coordinator of the project, said that "these training workshops strengthened the participants capabilities to play more effective role in advocacy campaigning." She emphasized the need to use all tools in the electronic advocacy and mobilization for justice issues.
At the end of the training workshop, the participants stressed the importance to address such issues as lobbying, advocacy, and the role of the media in promoting the role of NGOs. They also stressed the need to target a wide range of NGO employees as long as the training courses enriched their knowledge base of mechanisms to successfully carry out lobbying and advocacy campaigns.
They called upon the NGOs to focus on issues of concern to the Palestinian society and focus on change by carrying out advocacy campaigns.
Lobbying and advocacy campaigns are considered as an essential and significant part of the policy of Palestinian NGO's Network (PNGO) to enrich the experiences, knowledge and skills of the training workshops' participants and turn the acquired knowledge and skills of the participants into successful and effective actions.