The Participation Group, (PG), at the Institute of Development Studies, (IDS), University of Sussex, is inviting applications for our first Learning Fellowship Programme. The LF will focus on the experiences of human rights activists and advocacy groups who have, in their advocacy, sought to involve those normally seen as "beneficiaries" in their work. The LF will closely examine the rationale, methods, and results of the participatory approach in human rights advocacy. Examples of human rights work include: law and constitutional reform, human rights education, women's rights, rights of minorities, and socio-economic rights advocacy. The LF seeks to highlight the challenges and successes of citizen-centred advocacy in different contexts, using different methods.

Contact your government, the World Trade Organisation and European Union, to demand fairer trade rules for developing countries. Join the Africa-Europe Faith and Justice Network's letter writing campaign and state your concerns.

The Government has been unnecessarily shuffling anti-corruption strategies and so far they have failed to yield results, a major donor has claimed.

The International Society for Equity in Health (ISEqH) welcomes those interested in equity in health and health services to share expertise and experience through an international cross-disciplinary forum.

This manual is aimed primarily at trainers who are or will be engaged in training human rights activists as well as development workers, members of organisations representing disadvantaged groups and others who are addressing economic, social and cultural issues. The hope and expectation is that trainers working with these various groups will be able to take the material in the manual and, if necessary, adapt and expand upon it to conduct training programs on economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights and ESC rights activism. The manual intends to contribute to the process of learning that is currently underway and to encourage an expansion of activism that has as its goal the promotion and protection of ESC rights.

In the new scenario of social reactivation experienced in Latin America, we are seeing the growth of networks and social coordinations that bring together actors who are seeking to break out of the isolation of their specific struggles. The need to share, coordinate and disseminate their actions and proposals has lead them to appropriate the Internet. But they find that taking optimal advantage of this instrument demands a deeper understanding of its logics and peculiarities.

The Editorial Board of the Labour Bulletin seeks to appoint a new Editor to lead the exciting process of restructuring and re launching South Africa's premier labour publication.

The World Trade Organisation stands accused of failing poor countries and citizens in favour of rich nations and corporations. As the Qatar meeting approaches, it is now vital that huge public concern about WTO rules voiced in Seattle is not lost. The challenge is to transform this into a real commitment for change.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) today announced that the International Labour Organization (ILO) has formalized its commitment to fighting the global HIV/AIDS epidemic by becoming a Cosponsor of UNAIDS.

The Executive Director of Transparency International (TI), Mr. Miguel Schloss, has rated President Olusegun Obasanjo's anti-graft campaign low.

Gives an overview of existing knowledge and practice in capacity building. Not only in the health sector but in general, based on experiences and lessons learned in various sectors. By Anneli Milèn, Advisor, Department of Health Service Provision, World Health Organization, Geneva, June 2001. Adobe PDF file format, (33 pages, 158 kB).

The BBC 'I have a right to...' campaign includes awareness-raising debates and events in participating countries, radio programmes which will be broadcast to a potential audience of 125 million people, and a website. The project is designed to assist people make informed choices about their lives and participate in discussion and debate in regional, national and international arenas.

Online survey focuses on both internal and external communications activities. By internal communications, we mean the steps groups take to keep members, donors, and supporters informed about your work. Internal communications tools include newsletters, web sites, mailings, magazines and other publications, and hotlines. By external communications, we mean the publicity relations activities you rely upon to deliver your message to your target audiences (which may include members and supporters, but also include key decision-makers, other organizations and individuals, and the media). External communications tools include news releases, media events, speaking engagements, advertising campaigns, public service announcement campaigns, brochures, fact sheets and reports. There is frequent overlap between internal and external communications, but it helps to think of them separately when developing a communications strategy or determining how to improve an organization's overall communications capacity. After you've completed the survey, you will be provided with a summary of your answers, which you can then use in creating your organisation's communications plan.

This report, produced by the Benton Foundation, provides 15 stories illustrating the use of advocacy videos by broadcasters, individuals and nonprofits to motivate people to change their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries, and the laws that govern them.

Free the Slaves, Anti-Slavery International's associate in the United States, has successfully won a commitment from the Chocolate Manufacturers Association to end 'slavery, serfdom, and debt bondage in the growing and processing of West African cocoa beans and their derivative products'. This follows the 1 October Protocol in which the US cocoa and chocolate industry agrees to eliminate child slavery from the chocolate industry.

The 2002 IICD/INFODEV ICT Stories Competition has now started. The writers of the best four stories will present their lessons learned at an international event, which will announced soon. Stories will be judged on the following criteria: The project has an ICT component; The project uses ICT in an innavative way: it may use basic ICTs in a creative way, state-of-the-art technologies, or a combination of ICT and traditional media; The project involves development issues (or demonstrated potential for) in the field of ICT and addresses the sustainability of the project; The story clearly specifies the challenges encountered during the project and describes how these challenges were overcome (lessons learned); The story is written clearly and is enjoyable to read. The deadline for this competition is April 15th 2002.

After the hearing of the much-awaited Ogiek land case in Nairobi flopped last week, the case will now be mentioned on November 21.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) has petitioned Parliament to ban the deployment of soldiers to curb civic disturbances.

This year's World AIDS Campaign will chip away at masculine behaviours and attitudes that contribute to the spread of HIV, according to Dr Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The Botswana government has launched its door-to-door Aids awareness and education campaign, but there are some snags.