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Peasant women in El Galatma village are claiming to act quickly to solve their problems

The Land Center held a training workshop with 32 women and girls from the social development association at the village of Galatma in the 6th of October governorate on 25/10/2010 in order to solve the problems of women working in agriculture. Dr. Abeer Badran spoke in the beginning of the meeting about the need to address the problems by organizing campaigns and indicated that:
- Advocacy and lobbying efforts of the Organization is led by an organization or group of organizations that represent citizens to bring their voices to participate in the industry or change the decisions and public policies that affect their lives.
- The principle that the main distinction between advocacy and lobbying and other methods of development is the focus of advocacy campaigns to influence the decision-making activities are advocacy work at the level of decisions and policies in order to achieve the desired change.
- And confirmed that there are a lot of benefits that are brought to civil associations and citizens from the use of methods of advocacy and lobbying.
There are some community problems that can not be dealt with or resolved by following the practices of development are known, but the best and most suitable to be dealt with using the mechanisms for advocacy and lobbying, for example, can not be dealt with most problems related to consumer protection only through the activation of special laws such protection.
The following mechanisms of advocacy and lobbying with the problems that require treatment of huge budgets, for example, the draft an upper bridge to serve area residents and citizens could cost the Assembly millions of pounds, which is impossible to provide, however, the Assembly may be able to campaign cost it a lot less very successful in this call in a project is put on decision makers.
Then Mustafa Hanafi, a lawyer, spoke in the second session about the elements of advocacy, in which he asserted that there are specific elements are integrated at the practical application of the advocacy campaign and these elements are:
1 - The issue of calling
Must deal with the issue of advocacy or general developmental problem such as unemployment or environmental degradation or debts of farmers to the Development Bank or the issues of agricultural rents and the intended issue of advocacy is the attitude of the community posed by the Assembly of this problem.
2 - The grass-roots
The grass roots are a group of citizens who are represented by the Assembly and is working to defend their rights and through the implementation of various activities of the advocacy campaign and, hence, understanding of individuals affected by the results of the problem and issue which are represented by the Assembly to call for achieving them, and at the same time it is not a requirement of the Assembly, which begins advocacy campaign that already have a broad popular base, but it is necessary to have to plan and working to increase grass-roots through her work in the case of calling for
3 - beneficiaries
The calling activities can not be achieved unless the results of advocacy by working with decision-making bodies interested in the question the call and who possess the ability to achieve the desired change
4 - Alliances and partners
Allies and partners of the advocacy campaign are individuals or institutions and bodies who support the issue of association, the campaign, and they also who are willing to cooperate with them in implementing parts of the advocacy activities. And gain a partnership and alliance-building very special importance in advocacy campaigns because of their direct impact on the success of the campaign and its goals.
5 - Protestors
It is possible that the opposition individuals or institutions or bodies which are either entirely of opponents to the issue of advocacy. They have the perverse effect of the campaign or opponents of the Assembly only, or who will be affected negatively their interests behind the results call.
At the closing session attendees pointed to the need to find mechanisms to activate advocacy issues and agreed that at the beginning of your campaign to call select with precision and clarity of the five elements described above (elements of the process of advocacy). Then formulate the advocacy campaign message that the message is clear, concise and brief so that can be connected to the target audiences.
After that, select the strategies that are used in the advocacy campaign, such as the report of the use of a media campaign, or engage in partnership with associations and other bodies or processing of a petition for submission to the officials. Also place a clear perception of the sources of funding advocacy campaign to make sure of providing the resources required to start the advocacy campaign. It's better then to sign in to start the implementation of the activities and objectives of the initiatives through effective, clear and specific. Finally, sign the process of monitoring and periodic evaluation of the advocacy campaign to achieve its goal of changing society. At the end of the workshop, the problems in the workplace for wage and holiday and the formation of trade unions were concluded and the attendance agreed to organize a campaign to improve their situation in agriculture and to ensure their rights to decent work and equality.
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