Our Community Programme & Human Rights in Action

The British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR) is a charity that focuses on the promotion of human rights in the UK with the goal of enabling positive social change through the practical use of our Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA).

As we come to the end of our 2022–2025 Community Programme, we’ve been thinking about the importance of human rights-based approaches in community work and the real-life impact this can have. In this post, we want to explore this by sharing some of the achievements of the groups we’ve worked with throughout the programme, and how human rights-based approaches have been vital in creating positive change.

BIHR’s community programme started life as a pilot programme in 2021, working with a small number of community groups around the UK to support them to learn more about the HRA and how they can use it in their work. Thanks to the success of the pilot, we secured funding from the Baring Foundation to run a larger programme across three years. Since then, BIHR has partnered with 29 community groups working across a range of sectors including migrant support, health and disability, and domestic abuse. Our support has involved co-designing 10 human rights support solutions and delivering 19 free human rights awareness raising workshops attended by 237 people.

It’s important to look at these numbers for what they are: individuals, groups, and communities that have gained knowledge and confidence in using the HRA as a tool for advocacy and change in their lives and work.

To celebrate the impact of the programme, we recently hosted an online event and survey where some of those community groups shared stories of how human rights-based approaches have been important in their work.

In 2024, BIHR delivered a human rights awareness-raising workshop with Awesta, a charity working with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. They told us how understanding the HRA had empowered their staff:

“Through our participation in the community programme, we became more confident in using human rights-based arguments to challenge policies that prevent asylum seekers from accessing employment. We have supported individuals in advocating for their right to work, helping them gain financial independence and dignity.”

Pembrokeshire People First (PPF), a self-advocacy group led by and for people with a learning disability, shared how they worked with BIHR to challenge the lack of Easy Read materials during a consultation on the Bill of Rights Bill in 2022. PPF used the Easy Read human rights postcards that BIHR had previously co-designed with Warrington Speak Up to empower their community to take part in the consultation. A member of PPF highlighted why this work was so important:

“What we find in any consultation [is] we’re usually the last ones to get our voices heard so, basically, any consultation needs to be in Easy Read to start off with because we feel like we don’t get our voices heard until the last minute.”

As well as directly supporting community partners in their work, we have seen how human rights-based approaches have empowered groups to take part in BIHR’s policy work, where we take an experience-informed approach by amplifying the voices of people affected by the topics being discussed. For example, self-advocacy group My Life My Choice co-designed a human rights resource with BIHR in 2023, and they then contributed to our 2024 research report on DNACPR Notices and Processes commissioned by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. They shared how the DNACPR process is viewed by people with a learning disability and what changes they would like to see to ensure people’s human rights are respected.

These are just a few examples of where community groups have been able to use human rights-based approaches to bring about positive change.

The work these community groups are doing every day demonstrates the importance of the HRA, not just in how it allows us to seek justice in courts when our rights are not respected, but in how it empowers us to use human rights in our daily lives. By supporting communities to build confidence and knowledge about their human rights and who is responsible for upholding them, they can challenge unfair policies, push for rights-respecting decisions, and create a real impact, without needing to go to court.

Human rights aren’t just nice to have, they are protected by law. Through our community programme, we have witnessed how communities across the UK have used these legal rights in the HRA to drive meaningful change. As the programme comes to an end, we hope it serves as a testament to the importance of human rights-based approaches in community work and highlights the ongoing need for more programmes like this in the future.