Older people and human rights project

Human rights have huge potential to change the lives of older people - especially those who face abuse, neglect and isolation.

In April 2009, a joint report was released entitled Older People and Human Rights. One of the key findings of this report was that although there is awareness and genuine concern over the issues faced by older people, these issues are rarely framed as human rights issues. Older people often don't even know that they have rights - or that local authorities are legally bound to uphold them. Read the report here.

BIHR is working on an innovative three year project with Age Concern and Help the Aged to support older people to use human rights to challenge poor and often undignified treatment from service providers and local authorities.

Four local Age Concern groups from different parts of the country will take part in the project. Age Concern staff and groups of older people will be trained in human rights, to empower them to influence the improvement of services and the way that older people are treated and cared for. The groups of older people will identify their own small advocacy projects which they will then implement using human rights knowledge and methods, with ongoing support.

The first sessions working with the groups of older people involved in this project were held in June 2009. Read about one of these sessions here.

This project is kindly funded by Comic Relief.