Shabana Abdool shares her experiences of lobbying the European Parliament on the EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement which causes vast environmental damage in north-west Africa...

If you look on a world map, the small, zigzagged area of land situated on the western coastline of North Africa can be easily overlooked, just as easily as many fail to realise that this strip of desert remains to this day, as the last colony of Africa.  I, like many others knew nothing of the occupied territory of Western Sahara and came to learn of the conflict through friends while at university. Wanting to find out more, I became involved with a brilliant London-based human rights and arts charity called Sandblast, who works with Saharawi people - natives of Western Sahara. It was through Sandblast that I was fortunate enough to visit the Saharawi refugee camps, and this confirmed my want to get involved and help make a difference for Saharawis.

More recently I became involved with the Western Sahara Campaign (WSC), a campaigning group who works in solidarity with Saharawis to generate political support to advance their right to self-determination and promote their human rights.

So last month I had the great opportunity of going to the European Parliament with the WSC, to persuade MEPs to vote against an EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement which not only contributes to the destruction of marine life offshore Western Sahara, but is also in violation of international law. Working with the WSC, I was lucky enough to have my trip to Brussels supported by Green MEP Jean Lambert, who is a member of the European Parliament Western Sahara Intergroup.

At first, the thought of trying to influence the decision-making process at European level seemed like a daunting task, however my experience of being at the European Parliament was truly enlightening and insightful in how the European political system operates, and has opened my eyes to what difference individuals can make when you sincerely believe in something. Our aim was to lobby MEPs, and in the two days we were there, we had managed to meet with MEPs across various parliamentary groups, provided MEPs with sufficient literature of our cause, and even painstakingly posted briefing papers to each individual MEPs' pigeonhole - all of which were translated to their appropriate language.  Although there was a lot to do in a short space of time, and not to mention the vast amount of photocopying and printing required! I can safely say none of it was laborious, in fact every part of it was worthwhile, especially when receiving positive responses from MEPs. What struck me was the empathy many appeared to have towards the Western Saharan cause and the knowledge people had of the region was impressive. Coming from the UK, where so little is known of Western Sahara it was really encouraging to see individuals showing real concern for the future of the occupied territory of Western Sahara and its people.

After an eventful few days, being back home on the other side of the Channel, I watched with excitement as news stories started to unravel. The EU-Morocco fisheries agreement was being hotly debated and although we were prepared for the worst, none of us had quite expected the outcome. On 15th December 2011, MEPs voted down the proposed one-year extension of the fisheries deal between the EU and Morocco by 326 to 296 votes, with 58 abstentions - we had won! This was a huge victory and the verdict perhaps would not have been possible without campaigning individuals and groups. So my advice to all you fellow campaigners is if you believe in something, campaign about it, because whether big or small, your actions count as we all have the potential to make a difference.

To find out more about the Western Sahara Campaign please click here or about Sandblast here.

And don’t forget to download your Ultimate Campaign Toolkit online so you can start campaigning too!