Communications with a Wider Audience
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Creating a venue on the Internet for former child soldiers to share their stories and develop new skills

Launched in 2000, The Child Soldier Project of iEarn Sierra Leone created a website for former child soldiers to share their stories. www.childsoldiers.org featured the essays, poems, artwork and voices of former child soldiers and offered an online forum.

Compiling human rights education success stories to learn from the experiences of others

The Asia-Pacific Regional Resource Center for Human Rights Education (ARRC) compiles human rights education success stories to benefit the field of human rights education and to serve as an inspiration to disadvantaged groups.

Using the power of the media to send targeted messages to people in a position to end abuses

Radio Publique Africaine (RPA) used its power as a media entity to influence individuals and groups who could help fix the situation in the Burundi’s hospitals, where poor people were being held against their will because they could not pay their bills. Eventually, in partnership with local NGOs, APR successfully pressured the government to order the people’s release.

Using cinema to promote discussion and understanding of human rights culture

The Human Rights for the Assistance of Prisoners (HRAP) in Egypt used cinema to promote discussion and understanding of human rights culture.  HRAP wanted to raise public awareness of human rights issues and particularly awareness of the conditions of prisoners.

Visually representing human rights violations to build awareness

The Lebanese Greenpeace office mapped environmental violations in order to educate the Lebanese population about the toxic industrial waste problem along the entire coast of the country.

Building coalitions to affect local, regional and international policy using a rights and health-based approach

The need for building coalitions among diverse constituency groups at local, national and international levels grew out of the recognition that individual actors could not take on large corporate or government pesticide policies alone.  For example, pesticide activists faced a formidable, well-funded opposition to Proposition 128, known as the “Big Green Campaign,” which called for the end

Adopting international human rights conventions at the local level to improve women's rights

The Women's Institute for Leadership Development for Human Rights used the United Nations Convention to End Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to advocate for human rights at the local level.  Although CEDAW has not been ratified by the United States and thus cannot be invoked, WILD for Human Rights decided to apply it at the local level, in San Francisco, as a tool to combat issues such as discrimination and domestic violence.  They implemented CEDAW as a legislated municipal law with the exact wording of CEDAW; thus making it binding legally. 

Using technology to share information on environmental hazards

Environmental Defense created www.scorecard.org in 1998 to inform people about the level of pollution in their area and to encourage them to lobby the offending industries and their elected representatives to put a stop to it.

Creating an electronic news group

During the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, communications links across former republics and with the outside world were severed.  During the war, a women’s information and documentation center, Zenska Infoteka, was established in Zagreb with the goal of helping women who had been exposed to violence and sexual assault during the fighting.

Using Web sites to advance the rights of children

Casa Alianza created a web site to build a strong constituency of people who would work to improve the lives of street children in Latin America.