This notebook shares how Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) has been deeply involved in a collective process which has shaped and influenced the Campaign for the Right to Information in India. MKSS makes the case that without access to information and transparency there can be no genuine participation of all members of society, particularly the poor, in democracy. The right to know and actual transparency of information provides the ability to demand and access rights.

In this notebook we learn about how to use national and provincial government budgets as monitoring mechanisms to advance child-specific socio-economic rights.  Budget monitoring allowed them to analyze how the government implements and allocates budgets to fulfill its legal obligation to help realize human rights.

In this notebook we learn about the ways in which forensic science can unearth human rights abuses from the past and bring closure to families as well as truth to the judicial process.  The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team has been training human rights NGOs to use forensic tools to advance investigations.  Through this science one can tell if a person was tortured, if the death was accidental or intentional and they can try to indentify the person.

In this notebook we learn about how effective and beneficial building collaborative relationships with government institutions can be to advancing human rights education. Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR)-New Ways in Turkey gained the support and use of government resources for furthering human rights education of women at the local level.

In this notebook we learn about how museums are innovating ways to keep history alive so that the public can remember and talk about what happened in the past.  The International Coalition of Historic Site Museums transforms places of passive learning into places of active citizenship and engagement.

In this notebook we learn about how an organization in Hungary tests for and documents incidences of systematic descrimination against a disenfranchised population.  When an instance of discrimination is reported, this organization will send out testers find out whether or not this discrimination was systematic and then document their findings.

In this notebook we learn about the dilemma-demonstration tactic that was used by a Canadian organization to convince the government to release information that the public had a right to see.  They put pressure on the government by creating a climactic moment that brought media attention onto the issue and embarrassed the government.

The model raised by the Network of Community Defenders constructs a new tactic in the defense of human rights. It proposes that victims and their communities become involved by electing their own defenders.

The result has been "Tandem© Learning", a cultural contact program that improves intercultural understanding.

In this notebook you will learn how Elkarri, a group based in the Basque Region, has created a dialogue of social mediation that encourages participation on all levels of society.  Elkarri gives community members a choice over which part of the process they chose to particpate in, but they encourage particpation for all sides of the conflict.