Weekly Human Rights News: 18/10/24

This week’s human rights news is all about Advocacy Awareness Week! The week, coordinated by NDTi, brings together the advocacy sector around a theme, and this year’s theme is the impact of advocacy. BIHR works alongside advocates (and people who use their advocacy skills in their lives and/or work) across a range of projects, recognising the value of human rights as an important tool in their toolbox in supporting people’s voices to be heard.

We’re sharing what BIHR has been up to this week with a focus on singing the praises of advocates and community groups harnessing the power of human rights in their work to tackle social injustice.

We shared a blog on the impact of human rights advocacy

On Monday, we marked the beginning of Advocacy Awareness Week with a blog dedicated to the impact of human rights advocacy. The blog contains real-life stories showcasing the power of advocacy in mental health services, a video from BIHR’s very own former advocate, Katrin, and a reminder that human rights are universal – they belong to us all.

Read the blog

We kicked off our short training programme for advocates

This autumn, BIHR is excited to be running a human rights learning programme designed especially for statutory and independent advocates which aims to build expertise to use human rights law in their work. The first of three workshops took place this week, bringing course participants together for the first time and sharing information about how the Human Rights Act works in practice and the rights and freedoms it protects.

After workshop 1 this week advocates have moved their knowledge of the Human Rights Act from 3.2 out of 5 to 4 out of 5. With one feeding back “I found the session really useful, friendly and interactive in a way that was positive to learning and developing my knowledge.” This course will continue into November, with the hopes that this specialised training will play a transformative role in enabling advocates to ensure public bodies uphold their statutory human rights duties.

If you would be interested in BIHR’s 3-part course being delivered in-house for your advocacy organisation or team please get in touch with us on training@bihr.org.uk

Find out more about our advocacy programme.

We visited the African Women Empowerment Forum

This week, our Human Rights Officer Jacob travelled to Nottingham to visit the African Women Empowerment Forum. The visit was a great opportunity to test the human rights support solution that BIHR has been co-designing with them, as part of BIHR’s 3-year programme supporting small community groups all over the UK. The support solution has been designed so that African and other ethnic minority groups and communities, including migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, can learn about their human rights so they can advocate for themselves and their communities if their rights are not being respected.

Find out more about BIHR’s UK Community Programme.

We went to the virtual launch of a joint guide on human rights and recovery with the Scottish Recovery Consortium

We joined our friends at the Scottish Recovery Consortium for the online launch of a co-published guide called ‘Using Human Rights in Recovery’. The guide builds on the success of the Rights in Recovery Leadership Programme, where BIHR and SRC worked with a group of recovery advocates to equip them with human rights knowledge and confidence. With this resource we aim to reach a wider audience so that more people can know and advocate for their rights. People across the recovery sector in Scotland attended the event and shared their thoughts on the guide, saying it is ‘readable’, ‘relevant to recovery’, and the helpful tips and stories bring it to life.

Find out more about our work with SRC and get the joint guide

More information on Advocacy Awareness Week 2024

Head over to NDTi’s website for more information about the impact of advocacy, as part of Advocacy Awareness Week 2024. This includes:

Influencing advocacy through story-telling
Using data and evaluation in advocacy
Plenty of real-life stories from people sharing their own experiences of advocacy and self-advocacy in their lives