PPR Tools for Action Summer School Curriculum
DAY ONE
Human Rights and Change
Introduction to international and domestic legislation which is intended to promote economic and social rights, including how these legislative standards are not translating into sustainable positive outcomes for the marginalized in society.
Rights as Relationships
Rights are commonly defined as something which can be claimed by individuals to be enforced by the state. However, rights can be more usefully seen as creating and regulating relationships of power within a society.
Challenging and Changing Process and Outcomes
Individuals and groups can employ innovative and effective campaigning to get a ‘win’ on particular issues. However, for these ‘wins’ to be sustainable and transferable to other marginalized groups, the existing processes of economic and social decision making must be changed.
How Power Responds
PPR groups have experienced a range of responses from state bodies and government Ministers. The response of some state bodies reveals the resistance to implementing economic and social rights, despite an obligation to do so. PPR groups have developed innovative ways of pre-empting and responding to institutional resistance.
DAY TWO
The Time is Right - The Time is Now“Recognise this fundamental issue from the very beginning - change will always come at the speed of those who don’t want it to happen, rather than the speed of those who do. If you don’t take charge of change then those who resist it in the first place will still control the speed and time of change.” Inez McCormack, Founder and Adviser to PPR
PPR Methodology
Economic and social rights place obligations on states to ‘progressively realise’ rights using the ‘maximum available resources’. The PPR approach turns these obligations into participatory tools which empower marginalized groups to monitor the states’ activities.
What We Know About Change
PPR groups have experienced a range of responses from state bodies and government Ministers. The response of some state bodies reveals the resistance to implementing economic and social rights, despite an obligation to do so. PPR groups have developed innovative ways of pre-empting and responding to institutional resistance.
DAY THREE
Demanding Accountability
Democracy requires government to be accountable to the people. There are numerous ways in which states should be accountable to marginalized groups: for example political, legislative, administrative, and through the media. PPR groups have used a wide range of accountability mechanisms and approaches.
Tools for Action 
Monitoring the activity of states is not enough to get sustainable change. Strategies and tactics to build power for marginalized groups and apply pressure are essential to bring about change.
PPR Approach, Building Participation & Next Steps
The final section of the Tools for Action School enables attendees to hypothetically plan the first three months of applying the approach in their particular issue(s).