Women and Child Support Organization (WOCSO) on Wednesday 10th December 2014, held an event to mark the World Human Rights Day for awareness creation session for half a day.

The event attracted 15 participants invited from the community leaders, gate keepers and IDP community. The event was supported by Norwegian Refugee Council with the topic of advocacy on human rights violations at local level and engaging in communities in creating awareness on specific issues affecting women.

The welcoming and opening speeches were made by the executive Director of the Women and Child Support Organization (WOCSO), Abdirahman Ali, in his opening remarks thanked the participants for accepting their invitation at this important event as awareness creation session for half a day. In his welcoming speech Abdirahma Ali stated that the preparation of the event was a joint effort of WOCSO in collaboration with Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

The session started at 8:30 with welcoming and introduction of participants, followed by brief opening remarks by the WOCSO executive Director.

The awareness creation workshop was half a day starting from 8:30am in the morning and ending at 12:00pm. There were tea and snacks break in the morning at 10:00 for half an hour.

The participants received a brief note on the history of the Human Rights Day and why it is celebrated every year at this day 10^thDecember 2014.

During the awareness creation the participants found out what human rights is, and the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through presentation, distribution of postures from the NRC office in Mogadishu.

The participants reported the occurrence of human rights violations at local level especially sexual exploitation and gender based violence which are mainly committed by the men in uniform, and asked the Somali federal government to uphold the protection of human rights especially women and children by ensuring the perpetrator to be accountable for their offences, and be brought before the law.

Dr Abikar Abdikadir Ahmed, one of the participants welcomed the event as the most important to be held for human rights day. He emphasized the benefit he has taken from the session and the need to uphold the human rights by sharing what we have benefited from the event to our community.

Leilo Yusuf Ibrahim, a female participant told the developed countries are the stage to strongly protect human rights for all. In Somalia we knew that women and children are most suffered in human rights violations so we ask the Somali government to put tireless efforts in ending of human rights violations on all Somalis in general, and the women & children in particular.

it is believed that the participants will make use of the knowledge they acquired during the awareness creation effectively to increase the knowledge of Human Rights and the articles of Universal Declaration of Human Rights in their localities.

Mohamed Omar Ali, a community leader appreciated WOCSO and NRC for their initiative to hold the event for organizing this awareness creation for us. We call upon WOCSO and NRC to continue providing appropriate support in the future to the effort that will be to end of Human Rights Violations.