The Equality and Rights in Action Galway Project aims to build on work already done in the City to ensure that public/government bodies (e.g. Galway City Council, Tusla, GRETB, HSE) meet their responsibilities under the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty.
It is very important that communities and groups who experience discrimination, poverty and inequality have a voice in Galway city to ensure that public bodies protect and promote the rights of those communities and meet their responsibilities under the Public Sector Duty.
Galway City is a frontrunner in relation to supporting the implementation of the Public Sector Duty, a legal obligation on all public bodies to promote equality, prevent discrimination and protect the human rights of their employees, customers, service users.
Galway City Community Network, together with partner organisation Galway City Partnership and with the support of Galway City Council, continue to work towards building the collective capacity and engagement of rights holders through the development of a Civil Society Panel.
This work is supported by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission.
Project Objectives
Objective 1 : To enhance and build the collective capacity and collective voice and solidarity of Rights Holders in Galway City
Actions (a) – Establish the Civil Society Panel
- Engage with a range of organisations and groups representing Rights Holders
- Establish a process to recruit Rights Holders
- Workshops to build a shared understanding of the Panel
Actions (b) – Training and capacity building for the panel on:
- Legislation that affects Rights Holders, with particular reference to the Public Sector Duty
- Issues affecting Rights Holders and ways to apply or invoke the positive duty as a mechanism to address human rights and equality issues (peer led).
- How to apply the public sector duty to policies, plans, strategies and services.
Objective 2: To support and mentor Rights Holders to engage in the process of implementation of the Public Sector Duty
Actions
- Develop detailed user-friendly frameworks, tools and templates to facilitate assessment of policies, plans and strategies and to monitor implementation
- Identification of two to three policies/plans to be assessed by the Civil Society Panel
- To provide mentoring and support for the process of assessment
- Review and refine the process
Objective 3: To raise the profile of the Public Sector Duty amongst Duty Bearers focusing on the obligations of duty bearing organisations and agencies
Actions
- Develop a communications strategy
- Produce a video that features the voices and experiences of Rights Holders
- Provide two to three project updates
- Hold bi-lateral meetings with organisations/agencies
- Convene and support a collaborative forum
Objective 4: To provide a service to duty bearing organisations so that plans and policies can be assessed from an equality and human rights perspective
Actions
- Identify two to three public bodies to engage with the Panel
- Provide a civil society assessment and perspective on two to three plans
Objective 5: To ensure a project legacy of an established panel of Duty Bearers that may be replicated in other areas
Actions
- Build the profile of the Panel and its potential among public bodies in Galway City, using various media
- Record and report on the learning from the project.
- To hold end-of-project seminar to share the learning
- Following the project to continue to develop, support and facilitate the Civil Society Panel
- To incorporate the learning from the project into future human rights assessments
Other
- To convene and support the project Steering Committee
- To prepare financial and narrative reports as required to the Steering Committee and the Irish Human rights Commission