Community work
Community Programme: 2022-2025
The Community Programme is funded by the Baring Foundation for three years from 2022 – 2025. The aim of the project is to deliver on BIHR’s Strategic Aim 2: to strengthen the agency and voice of community groups and voluntary groups to address social justice issues using human rights. The programme has different phases which will repeat annually in what we’re calling a project cycle.
Read about the awareness-raising workshops Read about the human rights support solutions
Our Work in 2024
In 2024, our work to support communities will include awareness-raising workshops and co-design of human rights support solutions.
The programme follows four exciting phases, outlined below.
On 22nd May we launched applications for the co-design stage of this programme! BIHR will choose 4 community groups to work with us to create a resource which will use human rights to help tackle issues affecting the people they support.
Learning & Data Collection
We have used an evaluation framework to help us understand the difference that HRA advocacy can make to Community and Voluntary Groups (CVGs) and people, learning from our 2021 pilot project.
Launch Event
On Human Rights Day each year we will hold an event to share and reflect on the learning of previous cycle and launch our upcoming programme. This event will be an annual route into the work, engaging more and new CVGs each year.
In 2023, we shared samples of the six resources co-produced with our community partners over the course of the year.
Awareness-Raising Workshops for your Community
This is an application-based programme of bespoke, introductory online workshops for up to 20 CVGs across the UK. These are for staff working in community organisations and the people they work with to learn more about the practical use of the Human Rights Act, and how the legal duties and rights can be used to challenge the social injustices and disadvantage they are seeking to change.
Design a Community Support Solution
This stage supports long-term social change through human rights advocacy and approaches. BIHR will partner with CVGs to co-design human rights support solutions to integrate and embed HRA advocacy into their ongoing work to tackle a specific issue or area. This aims to support longer-term social change using human rights advocacy and approaches.
Our work so far
19
awareness-raising workshops delivered covering topics including disability, poverty, age, asylum & migration, domestic abuse, recovery, and more
6
support solutions co-designed with community groups across England, Scotland and Wales
2
annual Human Rights Day events with partner organisations to celebrate a human rights-based approach in communities
Our Community Support Solutions in 2023
We're pleased to share the human rights solutions co-produced with our community partners in 2023. Click each of the front covers below to see the resources.
What's next for BIHR's work with communities?
We are gearing up to open applications to community groups to co-design a human rights support solution with us!
As for 2025, we have plans for a summer school which we'll pilot as part of our hub activities, to fund places for small community and voluntary groups and help sustain our hub activities longer-term. We will also look to remodel BIHR's Know Your Human Rights self-advocacy took to support a network of partner organisations to sustain learning and practice, and to share with wider groups.
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