Local Action/Global Change: Learning About the Human Rights of Women and Girls, is a comprehensive training manual that includes the whole spectrum of women's human rights in an "interactive" format. Written by Julie Mertus with Mallika Dutt and Nancy Flowers, this innovative book addresses many audiences: advocates for women's human rights, students, educators, and grassroots women.

Local Action/Global Change combines development of rights awareness with issue-oriented actions. The manual includes substantive information about the human rights of women in such areas as violence, health, reproduction and sexuality, education, the global economy, the workplace, and family life. Each chapter connects the discussion to the provisions of CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) and to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and other international agreements.

Local Action/Global Change provides tools for women and men to examine critically the framework of human rights. The manual encourages readers to make connections among different sets of human rights (e.g., the connection between health and violence) and different constituencies (e.g., the connection between women of majority communities and refugee women). Activities feature interactive methodologies such as discussion, role-play, story-telling, and creative expression in art and music to relate human rights principles to women's personal experience.

Local Action/Global Change: Learning About the Human Rights of Women and Girls is available in English. Other versions of this book have appeared or will appear in Albanian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Serbian, Russian, Ukranian and Arabic. Local groups that want to make their own language version or find out more about existing language versions should contact Julie Mertus at suitcase@igc.org.

Local Action/Global Change is the product of five years of consultation and field experimentation with women around the world to determine the issues and the methodologies most effective for women's human rights education. The authors, Julie Mertus, Mallika Dutt and Nancy Flowers, brought extensive experience as trainers in many regions of the world to the task of preparing this comprehensive manual. Julie Mertus is a writer, professor and lawyer who has lived and worked in Eastern Europe. She has facilitated human rights workshops for a wided variety of audiences. Mallika Dutt is former Global Center Associate Director. She has worked to advance the agendas of immigrant women and women of color and is a founding member of Sakhi for South Asian Women, an organization based in New York City that works to end violence against women. Nancy Flowers helped to develop Amnesty International's program in human rights education and has conducted human rights training courses in the United States, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.

Local Action/Global Change was published in 1999 jointly by the Center for Women's Global Leadership (Global Center) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

How to Obtain a Copy:

Local Action/Global Change: Learning About the Human Rights of Women and Girls, 254 pages, ISBN: 0-912917-01-6, is distributed by WOMEN, INK., 777 UN Plaza, NY, NY 10017, USA

Tel: (1-212)687-8633, Fax: (1-212)661-2704, E-mail: wink@womenink.org

Website: http://www.womenink.org

Cost: US$25.95 plus shipping & handling.