Poverty and Human Rights Project
The British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR) is pioneering this exciting 'Poverty and Human Rights' project to increase knowledge and understanding of human rights. BIHR is one of only a few organisations based in the UK to take a human rights based approach to addressing poverty and social justice and this new project is piloting how human rights can support anti-poverty initiatives in the UK.
Read about BIHR Poverty and Human Rights Project
'Just knowing there's different rights - political rights, social rights, economic rights has given cause for hope'.
Mrs Ward, Irish Travellers Movement in Britain (ITMB)
A priority issue for ITMB is discrimination in the provision of health and housing accommodation services to the Irish Traveller.
BIHR maintain that poverty is a human rights issue and that human rights violations are a cause and consequence of poverty. People and communities experiencing poverty are often discrimination against both in terms of their ability to access public services and in how they are treated when using these services.
Project activities focus on working collaboratively with six London-based anti-poverty organisations: Housing Justice, Irish Traveller Movement in Britain, London Refugee Voice, Pecan, Praxis and Women in Prison. Links to each organisation are below. From May 2009 until December 2010, BIHR will build capacity and help the groups to:
- build awareness, skills and knowledge in human rights;
- build awareness of how human rights can be used to influence a policy maker or public body to make changes to a policy or practice;
- develop and deliver human rights based influencing activities (campaigning, lobbying, and advocacy) on a specific issue/area relevant to their community or group.
'The project will help us to develop awareness-raising campaigns for users and service providers to help them look at the implications of what they are doing. We want to develop an integrated approach when dealing with the social services and other service providers so that we can make them aware of human rights.'
Tatiana Tomayeva, Praxis
BIHR support includes human rights training focusing on human rights principle and legislation, helping to identify key issues and helping organisations to develop a plan of influencing activities and outputs. BIHR will also provide support to help organisation to identify simple and useable methods of evaluating and monitoring progress and change.
The 'Poverty and Human Rights' project will enable BIHR to develop a model for organisations working on poverty and related issues around the UK, including useful information and tools.
'Homeless people often have little if any knowledge about human rights and so they are rarely used. Yet having a home is a fundamental part of our human dignity. If homeless people know about their rights, they can use them to challenge their treatment and improve their circumstances.'
Bill Bell, Housing Justice
See below, for more about adopting a human rights based approach.
This project is supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, City Parochial Foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Oxfam.
Contact Roisin Cavanagh at BIHR for more information: rcavanagh@bihr.org.uk.
Organisations participating in the project (Click headings below to find out more)
Housing Justice (HJ) is the national voice of Christian action in the field of homelessness and housing. They support night shelters, drop-ins and other practical projects. Housing Justice provides advice and training to churches and community groups.
Irish Traveller Movement in Britain
Irish Traveller Movement in Britain (ITMB) seeks to raise the profile of Irish Travellers and challenge discrimination and develop national policies that ensure the inclusion of Irish Travellers in all levels of society.
London Refugee Voice (LRV) is a membership organisation of Refugee Community Organisations (RCOs) in London. LRV seeks to strengthen the ability of RCOs to advocate and lobby on refugee issues and to enhance their capacity.
Pecan works with a variety of client groups, such as ex-offenders, young people, refugees and asylum seekers who because of their backgrounds, find mainstream education very difficult. Pecan provide training and motivational projects in local communities.
Praxis works with refugees, asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants, helping them on their journey from newly arrived migrants to settlement in the UK.
Women in Prison (WiP) supports and campaigns for women offenders and ex-offenders. They deal with root causes of women's offending and empower women to campaign for changes to the criminal justice system.
Human rights based approach to public services
A human rights based approach (HRBA) is the process by which human rights are made real in people's everyday lives. It is based on two key premises - firstly, that all people have human rights (we are rights holders) and secondly, that for each right they is a corresponding duty on states to respect, protect and fulfil these rights.
For the voluntary and community sector taking a HRBA approach can mean a change from talking about the needs of people/communities they support or represent, to talking about their rights. Reframing poverty issues as rights issues can help the sector to hold public services and the government to account for:
- lack of provision of essential services
- low standards of service
- discrimination or other poor treatment when accessing public services.
A HRBA promotes the active and informed participation of those affected by the issues in realising the solutions.
BIHR is working with the Department of Health on a national 'Human rights in healthcare project'. It began in 2006 and aims to support the use of 'human right based approaches' within a healthcare setting to improve service design and delivery. BIHR has also linked up with the Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA) to integrate human rights in local government. The 'Human rights and local government' project began in November 2009.
British Institute of Human Rights
BIHR is an independent human rights charity that is committed to challenging inequality and social justice in everyday life in the UK.
'We want a society that has become stronger because all human beings are equally valued, can participate fully and are treated with fairness, dignity and respect. Our mission is to bring human rights to life – supporting and empowering people and organisations to use human rights to improve their own lives and the lives of others.'
BIHR is a leading provider of human rights training to the third and public sectors in the UK. They have over 10 years experience of supporting the sector to use human rights in their work to empower individuals and influence wider training. More about BIHR's Training and Consultancy.
BIHR also publish four plain English "Your Human Rights" guides focusing on the practical relevance of human rights in the UK. They were published in 2006 and are written directly for people living with mental health problems, disabled people, older people and refugees and asylum seekers who are in situations where they may need information on their human rights. More about BIHR Human Rights Guides.
A three year BIHR project ‘Human Rights in the Community’ aims to empower individuals and communities with human rights language and tools. The project will help develop pilot human rights advocacy projects and create an interactive web resource that will act as a ‘one-stop-shop’ of human rights information as well as a forum for sharing learning.
This project started in April 2010 and is led by BIHR in partnership with the English Regions Equality Network (EREN), and is funded by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
More about the British Institute of Human Rights.
Additional Reading
An important report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 'Poverty, inequality and human rights' by Alice Donald and Elizabeth Mottershaw was published in 2009. The report explores how human rights have been used to frame poverty and approaches to tackling it, in both developed and developing countries. Read the summary: Poverty, Inequality and Human Rights.
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