Indigenous peoples that choose to be a part of this network actively participate in government activities, ensuring that the indigenous voice is heard when public policies that affect the Amazon are being created. The movement pressures and lobbies for the inclusion of specific participants on government commissions and builds strong bonds between the participants and the government, as well as participants and their indigenous communities. The COIAB has helped develop indigenous-friendly policies in the areas of indigenous health, education and the environment, among others.

La Iniciativa Popular está contemplada en la Constitución Argentina en el artículo 39 a partir de reforma de 1994. Por las dificultades que tienen los ciudadanos para lograr las firmas del 1.5% de los electores en al menos 6 distritos nunca antes del 2002 llegó al Congreso un proyecto presentado, haciendo uso de este instrumento constitucional.

Since 1996, the Ruta Pacifica, a feminist, pacifist, anti-military organization, has been organizing caravans of thousands of women from all over Colombia to the regions hardest-hit by conflict. Each caravan is a symbolic gesture against the war and a practical opportunity for women to come together to exchange ideas and demand an end to human rights violations.

Peru’s Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (National Coordinator for Human Rights, CNDDHH) is globally recognized as one of the most successful and effective coalitions in the world. This notebook analyzes the characteristics of a strong coalition and shows how to successfully fight against an authoritarian government, like that of Fujimori in Peru the 1990s.

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.

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.

This notebook describes the tactics that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Peru implimented to give a voice to victims of governmental human rights abuses.  The purpose of the commission was not an investigation, rather Public Audiences provided victims the opportunity to tell their stories and rewrite history in a sense to include the abuses they suffered.

In this notebook, we learn about the efforts, ability, and commitment of law enforcement personnel–one of the most difficult groups to reach regarding human rights–to address and confront human rights issues and violations from their own perspective and within their own ranks.

Read how Memoria Abierta (Open Memory), a human rights organization in Argentina, organizes thousands of documents related to the state terrorism and makes them accessible through an online database as a way to raise public awareness about what happened in Argentina from 1976-1983.

In this notebook we learn about how the Russia nongovernmental organization Citizens' Watch created relationships with key government officials to promote human rights. Citizens' Watch recognized the potential for engaging bureaucrats to advance human rights in Russia.