CCR

INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE RIGHTS CONFERENCE, JUNE 2006
Questions for participants
 
To help us plan an agenda that will respond best to the interests of participants and use their expertise, we are hoping that you will answer some questions about your organization and your ideas for the conference.

1.      Your focus

What are your/your organization’s main interests and areas of expertise in relation to refugees and the forcibly displaced?


2.      Goals and themes of the conference

a)      The goal of the conference is to promote NGO networking across borders to protect the rights of refugees.  How would you use participation in the conference to achieve this goal? What can you and your organization offer to support cross-border networking beyond the conference?


b)      Which of the following themes we have identified for the conference most interest you? 

•            Interdiction and access to protection
•            Internally displaced persons
•            Effective protection
•            Detention of asylum seekers
•            Economic and social rights of refugees
•            Durable solutions (local integration, voluntary repatriation, resettlement)
•            Refugee determination
•            Gender violence and refugees
•            Trafficking in persons
•            Settlement and integration of refugees

Are there other themes that should be included?  Better ways of formulating main themes?

Planning the conference sessions

3.      Do you have suggestions for a) themes and/or speakers for plenary sessions? b) projects or networking initiatives you know of/are involved in that should be presented at the conference so that we can build on them through the conference and beyond? c) specific workshop topics would you like to see on the program?

4.      Would your organization be interested in organizing a workshop? (we are proposing to offer a certain number of workshop sessions to be organized by participants.  Workshops must have representation from more than one region and  advance goal of networking across borders.  Organizers of workshops will be responsible for funding to bring panellists).

5.      Do you have other suggestions about how to plan the conference so that it is most effective in promoting cross-border networking?


Conference promotion

6.      How can you help distribute information about the conference so the right people hear about it?  (e.g. email lists, websites, meetings).


Funding sources

7.      The CCR is seeking funding to allow us to cover travel costs for a certain number of participants, particularly speakers from the Global South.  However, it will be limited and we would of course like to increase the number of people that we can support.  Can you suggest possible sources of funding (either that we could apply to directly, or that we could suggest to participants for them to apply to)?  Is your organization able to fund someone else’s travel (e.g. a partner organization)?
 

Other

8.      Do you have any other suggestions for us?


Please return with your responses to ccr5@web.ca. Thanks in advance for your input. 



We will be developing a draft agenda based on the input we receive.  For the overall format of the agenda, we are planning to adapt the successful consultation model regularly used by the Canadian Council for Refugees to fit the international nature of our June 2006 consultation.  This means that the conference will likely be shaped somewhat as follows:

Part 1: participatory workshops geared to information-sharing and strategizing on particular topics.

Part 2: Strategizing sessions to develop specific action items (the action items are collected overnight and compiled for presentation in the concluding session)

Part 3: concluding plenary session to review and agree on consolidated action items.

All workshops will be expected to pay attention to how NGOs can work together across borders to promote refugee rights.

Click here for more information on the International Conference.