Village Aid: Why do we campaign?
Positive political action can take place at many levels:
- Micro level
- Within families, between husbands and wives, parents and children.
- Local village level
- Between the most powerful and the most marginalized, eg. on behalf of Widows, disabled and young women, for fairer access to resources, and by solving community disputes.
- At district / regional level
- To lobby for statutory rights, and services, and to address tribal disputes and inequalities.
- At national level
- To work for good governance, just legislation and corruption uprooted.
- At international level
- For fairer trade, and end to the debt cycle, and much better global sharing of resources without manipulation and violence.
In the UK we target our public education campaigns increasingly on under 40s as the key political activists of the future, and we focus on young ‘disenfranchised’ people, as well as on people of influence. Our schools work is purely educational and unconnected with fundraising, though many schools do choose to support us financially by their efforts.
Examples of our partners’ campaign activities include:
- Civil education on gender rights, and campaigning against early marriage in The Gambia (see AVISU)
- Pressing for free and fair elections in Sierra Leone. Empowering young people to campaign using radio drama and music, not violence (see YAPAD)
- Providing support to human rights lawyers and students in Cameroon who provide para-legal advice and lobbying support against powerful forces who want to drive grazers off the land (see MBOSCUDA)
- Fighting the practice of witchcraft accusations against older vulnerable women in Northern Ghana (see Simli Aid)
This can be dangerous and difficult work. Our role is to support our partners financially, organisationally and personally. We have been generously assisted by the Baring Foundation and EuropeAid to build the capacity of ourselves, our partners in Ghana and in Sierra Leone to be better equipped for this and other development work.
For more details use our contact form