Community work

Community Programme: 2022-2025

BIHR's UK Communities Programme 2022-2025 has been generously funded by the Baring Foundation. This programme has enabled BIHR to provide free human rights capacity-building support to a wide variety of community organisations. The aim of the project has been 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.

Read about the impact of this programme Watch our video about the UK Community Programme on YouTube

Programme Aims and Activities

Since 2022, BIHR has been providing practical human rights support to a wide range of small community and voluntary groups across the UK. The aims of this project have been:

To increase the knowledge, confidence, and resilience of CVG staff and volunteers and the people they support to recognise how the HRA protects them; and
To build CVGs’ capacity to challenge and influence decision-makers they interact with to meet their HRA legal duties in their policy and practice.

We delivered this impact through a series of activities which have run on a project cycle:

Human Rights Awareness-Raising Workshops

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.

Co-designed Human Rights Support Solutions

This stage supports long-term social change through human rights advocacy and approaches. BIHR partners 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.

Launch Events

On Human Rights Day each year we have held an event to share and reflect on the learning of previous cycle and launch our upcoming programme. This event brings together community partners, offering a chance to share how the HRA can make a difference in their communities.

Learning and 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.

Our programme in numbers

106

unique applications from community groups for free human rights capacity-building support

19

awareness-raising workshops delivered covering topics including disability, poverty, age, asylum & migration, domestic abuse, recovery, and more

10

human rights support solutions co-designed with community groups across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

3

annual Human Rights Day events to celebrate a human rights-based approach in communities

Our community partners

Across the three-year programme, BIHR has partnered with 29 community and voluntary groups, including organisations from all four nations, working across a variety of areas, including domestic abuse, migration support, and learning disability.

Scroll down for links to our dedicated webpages for the awareness-raising workshops and co-design offers, which include more information about all of the groups we worked with.

Organge map of the UK with blue pins to show where organisations on BIHR's community programme are based. There are pins all across the map.

Human Rights Awareness-Raising Workshops

In 2023 and 2024, BIHR offered free online 90-minute human rights workshops to CVGs as a bespoke introduction to HRA advocacy. This is the beginning of the human rights journey, providing the opportunity for CVG staff, volunteers and members to learn about their human rights in an interactive way. It builds knowledge, confidence, and capacity to address social justice issues affecting their communities using human rights.

Our evaluation of this activity demonstrates that even introductory human rights capacity-building support in the form of our awareness-raising workshop has brought important immediate and long-term benefits for small CVGs to begin to tackle the social injustices they experience.

Supported Loving Organisation Lead, 2024

"It was a wonderful workshop and it was very powerful to hear people with learning disabilities being told about their rights in regards to sex and relationships. This is so rarely spoken about and it was great to have this opportunity to do this together."

The Traveller Movement Organisation Lead, 2024

"Attending the human rights training workshop was an enlightening experience that equipped our team with the basic knowledge and tools needed to advocate for justice and equality for Romani and Traveller communities. This invaluable training will empower us to champion human rights and foster positive change for all."

BRIL Participant, 2024

“Very good well worth doing.”

Rochdale Women's Welfare Association Organisation Lead, 2024

“Our team at RWWA loved the human rights workshop and feel empowered after Sanchita delivered that session, it was nice to have our concerns regarding accessing and using the provisions validated. We were able to look at the framework in a positive way, and as though it was for ALL humans. Having a case study that focused on an issue that we regularly face was genius. I can see the team are ready to start quoting the duties owed. The narrative has definitely changed.”

Co-designed Human Rights Support Solutions

Through intensive programmatic partnerships, we co-developed 10 new tailored support solutions to help CVGs to integrate HRA advocacy into their work. Each unique resource combines legal information about the HRA with the lived experience of CVG staff and members, with bespoke formats and designs to ensure the final product is relevant, practical and impactful.

Co-production is at the heart of this offer. CVGs felt that they had been listened to and fully involved in the co-development of their human rights support solutions, generating a sense of empowerment and pride for those involved in the process.

Co-design partner, 2023

“I believe you have the right balance with allowing the community organisations to lead in the areas they know best, but also merging this with "official" language and knowledge from your own perspective worked really well.”

Bomoko NI, 2024

“This initiative has been invaluable in empowering our members with essential knowledge and support in navigating their rights and housing challenges. Feedback from our members has been overwhelmingly positive, with participants expressing appreciation for the program’s relevance and impact. Many found the program insightful and empowering, highlighting the importance of continued efforts in this area.”

Cwm Taf People First, 2024

“Our work on this project has opened up other avenues for us to explore, and in light of this no ask was too big (or strange) for the BIHR team. They really held our members interests at heart and worked with us to make sure that they were included in the process and that their voice was at the centre of our Game. This has allowed our members to see themselves within the final resource, generating a sense of pride; motivation to want to do more; and eagerness to share our work.”

Co-design partner, 2023

“I hoped we would have an equal role in co-designing the programme and this definitely happened. All of our expectations were met.”

Families in Trauma and Recovery speaking about their human rights guide at out 2023 Human Rights Day event in UK Parliament.

Launch events

This grant has enabled us to truly bring community action into our annual work to celebrate International Human Rights Day on 10^th December. Since 2022, the focus of this event has been to showcase our work to empower communities with HRA advocacy through this programme. In 2022 (due to the pandemic), this took place online with guest speakers joining virtually across the UK, and in 2023 and 2024 our events took place in the Houses of Parliament in London.

These invite-only events have been multi-purpose:

To launch the co-designed human rights support solutions.
To bring together CVGs from the co-design part of the programme to share their new resources and their experience of being involved in the programme.
To gather civil society and policy professionals so they can hear about community-based human rights support and its value.

Human Rights Day 2022 Human Rights Day 2023 Human Rights Day 2024

What's next for BIHR's work with communities?

This programme concluded in Spring 2025. BIHR will continue our work supporting communities beyond this programme. We are actively exploring how we can continue to provide this support free of charge to communities across the UK.

BIHR is a leading provider of human rights training to individuals, community groups, and public bodies. Click the link below to download our training brochure and find out how to enquire with us.

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