Abilis Foundation, the Finnish NGO Foundation for Human Rights KIOS and Siemenpuu Foundation organized an international seminar Minority and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights on 4–5 October 2011 in Helsinki. This was the first time when the three NGO foundations organized a seminar as a joint effort. The seminar aimed to increase awareness of people working and interested in the fields of development cooperation and the significant inter-relationship between minority and indigenous peoples’ rights. The seminar also hop[ed to identify and break down existing discriminating structures that lead to further discrimination of minorities and indigenous peoples.
The seminar had five objectives,
- increase discussion about the interconnections between the fulfillment of minority and indigenous peoples’ rights and the achievement of development and how these support each other,
- increase awareness of the partners from the developing countries about minority and indigenous peoples’ rights in Finland,
- strengthen the South-South and North-South cooperation,
- increase the recognisability of the work in organizing foundations and
- strengthen the cooperation between organizing foundations.
Mr Adilur Rahman Khan of, Odhikar participated in the seminar and gave a presentation on Denial of self determination as discrimination.
This publication summarizes the opinions, facts and visions expressed during the seminar. The brief summaries of the presentations of the seminar are based on notes and they highlight only the main points of the presentations.
