Advocacy Training Consultant At The Jerusalem Legal Aid & Human Rights Center

INTRODUCTION

The Jerusalem Human Rights Consortium (JHRC), is a consortium of four leading Palestinian human rights organizations native of Jerusalem; The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre (JLAC), The Land Research Centre (LRC), The Saints Yves Association (St Yves) and the Women’s Centre for legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC).

The consortium is implementing the project “Protecting Marginalized Communities in East Jerusalem through legal aid, planning and advocacy”, funded by the EU East Jerusalem Programme. The overall objective of the project is to support the marginalized Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem, increase their resilience, prevent forcible transfer and reinforce the Palestinian identity of East Jerusalem. Over the course of the project, the consortium and its member organizations will support the resilience of Palestinian Jerusalemite communities through the provision of legal aid, land planning assistance, and local and international advocacy efforts.

The legal aid efforts the consortium organizations will provide can be broken down into

• House Demolitions
• Residency Rights
• Social & Economic Rights
• GBV and Family Rights due to Israeli discriminatory laws and policies
• Public Interest Cases

The JHRC is hosted by the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre (JLAC), and thus JLAC acts as the legal representative of the JHRC.

RATIONALE

Since occupying and eventually annexing East Jerusalem illegally, Israeli occupation authorities, through the Jerusalem occupation municipality, the Ministry of Interior and other official bodies, have sought to erase Jerusalem’s Palestinian identity. The policies adopted and implemented to achieve this purpose have impacted every aspect of Palestinians’ quotidian lives.

These policies are part and parcel of a larger apparatus of forcible transfer, Judaization and erasure, to which we refer here as the “**architecture of dispossession and repression**.” Not only do the laws, regulations and policies upon which this architecture is formed violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law, they even contravene, on many occasions, with the Israeli Basic Laws and constitutional norms.

Besides targeting their identity, existence, civil and political rights, these policies have left the Palestinian residents in Jerusalem reeling from poverty, unemployment and social and economic disenfranchisement.

Any discussion of the situation of Palestinians in Jerusalem should have as its starting point the legal status imposed by Israel on the city’s Palestinian population, that of the “permanent residents,” whose residency is fragile and revocable.

In addition to the revocability of their status, Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem live under the constant threat of home demolitions, a direct consequence of systematically discriminatory planning policies that attempt to exclude Palestinians from the urban space.

The legal challenges facing Palestinians in Jerusalem have been further exacerbated over the last decade with the rise of the Israeli right, which has pushed for various laws and regulations to solidify the Israeli control over East Jerusalem.

Among the most striking manifestations of such legislations is the amendment to the Israeli Planning and Construction Law, commonly known as the Kaminitz law. The amendment provides inspection units with unprecedented powers in the realm of enforcement while also imposing harsher fines and criminal sentences to “deter” the phenomenon of “unauthorized construction.” Moreover, the amendment limits the power and discretion of the Local Affairs Court, under whose jurisdiction the issue of unauthorized construction lies, by restricting the number and length of the injunctions that freeze demolition orders.

This drastic escalation requires the re-evaluation of the legal strategies to be adopted by organizations or individual attorneys active in defending the rights of Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Above all, we argue that to confront these changes, efficient coordination among Palestinian human rights organizations is urgently needed as is, at some point, the institutionalization of such coordination. The main objectives of this desired coordination are the crystallization of a strategic legal plan with tangible outcomes, coordinating legal action, and augmenting their power to affect and challenge the Israeli legislation, policies and measures in East Jerusalem.

This does not, by any means, imply that there is a shortage of efforts focused on offering legal protection to residents affected by demolition orders, residency revocation, and general denial of rights. Yet, these efforts are scattered, lack the proper methodology, and are geared toward case-by-case litigation and individual solutions rather than constituting a comprehensive strategy based upon coordination, cooperation and centralization. Only by formulating such a comprehensive, crosscutting strategy can we aspire to effectively confront the discriminatory, repressive and coercive legal landscape charted by Israel.

The Assignment

Those Terms of Reference (ToR) for the required technical support towards building the capacities and increase the knowledge of the consortium member organizations and likeminded organizations.

This ToR therefore provides information on the overall objectives of the consultancy assignment, the general methodology, expected deliverables and the required qualification and experiences of the consultant to conduct the assignment.

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes of JHRC members and likeminded organizations, and equip them to design, implement, monitor and evaluate successful advocacy interventions.

Objectives

1. Clarify the definition and differentiation between key concepts: Advocacy, campaigning, lobbying, organizing and mobilizing, raising awareness and pushing for systematic change.
2. Equip JHRC member organizations and likeminded organizations with the skills required to design successful, innovative and contextualized advocacy interventions.
3. Develop the capacities of JHRC member organizations and likeminded organizations in effective community organizing such as (storytelling, building relationships, structuring teams, strategizing, and acting)
4. Inspire JHRC members and likeminded organizations to act and make them examine and discover their own power (power is defined as “the ability to achieve purpose”).
5. Provide the participants with the needed tools to enhance the planning processes at national and international levels, for example mobilizing citizens to play an active and informed role in advancing resilience, scaling up of JHRC program methodologies, and identifying strategies which reflect the needs of the rights holders.

Scope of work

The consultant will prepare the necessary material and tools required to implement the training (tentatively, the training will be delivered between March- June 2022):

• Inception report including the detailed training plan, agenda and required support for JHRC approval,
• Inception (kick-off) meeting to present the inception report to JHRC staff,
• Develop all needed content, tools and supporting material, tailored to the specificities and needs of JHRC and its member organizations,
• Support the coordination and facilitation of the training sessions.
• Submission of a final report by the end of the training course

Note:

The JHRC will be in charge of the logistic aspect of the intervention, including venue, catering, transportation and lodging costs.

The consultant is to inform the JHRC of any needed equipment to carryout the training sessions in the inception report.

Methodology and approaches:

• It is expected that varying participatory methods will be applied in order to maximize participant involvement and learning while accommodating for diverse learning styles.
• Group work and brainstorming should be used for every conceptual session to ensure that the trainees are fully engaged and their knowledge gaps are addressed. Simulations and role plays will be critical to equip participants with practical skills.
• Peer review and constructive feedback are important to facilitate peer learning and knowledge exchange among participants.
• A rapid assessment using a pre-self-assessment tool shall be developed and filled in by the participants before the training and a post training assessment on the level of knowledge gained.
• Any other creative and progressive methods of learning can be proposed and considered by the consultant.

Based on global standards and theories

Both content and format/layout of the training must comply with international standards, including

• Emotionally safe
• Inclusive and non-discriminatory
• Gender-sensitive
• Respectful and non-intrusive
• Fun (variations and creative)
• Do no harm

Qualifications

• Advanced university degree in communications, human rights, political science or any related field.
• Minimum of seven (7) years of relevant work experience with demonstrable expertise in developing advocacy and media engagement strategies and facilitating trainings,
• Strong understanding of the principles of human rights work, theories of social change, and grassroots communications and mobilization.
• Demonstrated experience in leading advocacy trainings tailored for human rights organizations and grassroots structures,
• Sound knowledge of the local context in Palestine and East Jerusalem in particular,
• Proven command of spoken and written English language
• Strong analytical and excellent writing and reporting skills.

Language

The training should be delivered in Arabic or English.

Timeframe

The consultant will be expected to finalize the assignment by July 31^st 2022.

Level of Effort

The consortium foresees a maximum compensation of 20 working days.