504 - Refugee Rights and Mainstreaming

In terms of international law, refugees have their own rights and obligations. Human rights norms determine the minimum standards for the status of refugees in the country of asylum. Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines asylum as a fundamental human right by stating that “Everyone has the right to seek asylum in other countries from persecution”. However, the right to asylum is one of the most violated and ignored human rights today. On the one hand, while the approaches of states that ignore the fundamental rights of asylum seekers are increasing, on the other hand, hostility towards the "other" is spreading rapidly among societies and the fundamental rights of refugees are violated. For this reason, strengthening the capacity of civil society organizations carrying out rights-based activities on refugee rights is important in terms of increasing their ability to fight discrimination.

The fact that civil society organizations carrying out rights-based activities in different fields have basic information about refugee rights, use the right concepts and mainstream refugee rights will enable their rights advocacy work to be more effective. Mainstreaming is only possible if organizations include the phenomenon of migration and asylum seekers in their work with a bottom-up approach. This inclusion also ensures that asylum seekers are not considered as passive beneficiaries of humanitarian aid, but as individuals who contribute to the society they live in as well as their own future.

The aim of this course is to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations on refugee situations and rights in the processes of mainstreaming refugee rights in order to integrate refugees into the civil society agenda in the context of migration and development and to ensure the representation of refugees in rights-based studies. 

504- Refugee Rights and Mainstreaming online course content has been prepared by the Human Resource Development Foundation (IKGV), one of the partners of the “Civil Society Capacity Building Center” project carried out by STGM and supported by the European Union under the Civil Society Instrument (CSF).

• The inadequacy of security-oriented approaches to the phenomenon of migration and asylum, its harm to the society and the development-oriented approach that contributes to the society,
• The change of the population in Turkey in the last fifty years and the characteristics of the demographic transformation specific to Turkey,
• Why refugees should be included in the agenda of non-governmental organizations,
• The content and scope of the concept of protection and the differences between State protection and international protection,
• Responsibilities of the states accepting refugees in terms of protection within the framework of the principle of non-refoulement,
• The protection needs of refugee groups with special needs and their access to rights and services in Turkey and the problems experienced in implementation,
• The importance of social cohesion and the social events that may arise when cohesion is not achieved, and good examples applied by non-governmental organizations on social cohesion,
   

All it takes is 3 days for the face-to-face “504 - Refugee Rights and Mainstreaming” course. This face-to-face training will take place between 10-11-12 May 2023.

If you have decided to participate in “504 - Refugee Rights and Mainstreaming” online-only, good news! There is no set start and end date. You can start at the time you set and finish at the pace you set. Our recommendation to you is to spend 45 minutes a day and complete the entire program in 3 days. 504 - The video content in Refugee Rights and Mainstreaming takes 1.5 hours and the reading materials take 1 hour. So the total duration of all the content is 2.5 hours.