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East Timor
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Grassroots programmes and projects you can support
COHRE works with a large number of grassroots organisations from the Asia-Pacific region, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. These groups tend to be local, generally non-hierarchical movements, consisting of persons from the community-level and civil society. Although the odds are almost always stacked against them, these grassroots movements are often the most effective voices supporting improvements in the housing rights situations facing the poorest members of society. COHRE has increasingly sought, where possible, to assist these groups to access resources and funds to continue to carry out their admirable work.
The following list has recently been updated (March 2007). It is a list of grassroots groups that we have had a direct and sustaining working relationships with, attesting to their credibility, effectiveness and democratic nature.
BADIL
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights takes a rights-based approach to the Palestinian refugee issue through research, advocacy and support of community participation in the search for durable solutions.
BADIL was established in January 1998 to support the development of a popular refugee lobby for the right of return through professional research and partnership-based community initiatives. The center is registered with the Palestinian Authority.
Centre for Applied Legal Studies
Founded in 1978 and based in South Africa, CALS was a pioneer in the development of Human Rights in South Africa in the apartheid years. Its initial primary objective of promoting human rights through research and education soon expanded to include a wide range of public impact litigation and extra-curial mediation. Recently,CALS work has increasingly been to focus on issues of implementation and enforcement of rights and on ‘law in practice’. This has also generated a renewed emphasis on litigation and a concern with socio-economic rights.
Instituto de Servicios Legales Alternativos
Colombia
Milan Šimečka Foundation
Based in Bratislava, Slovakia, Milan Šimečka Foundation is one of the COHRE partners working on Roma rights.
National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty
United States of America
Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign
Based in the United States of America, the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign is committed to unite the poor across color lines as the leadership base for a broad movement to abolish poverty. We work to accomplish this through advancing economic human rights as named in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as the rights to food, housing, health, education, communication and a living wage job.United States of America
Rights Action
Rights Action is a multi-faceted community development, environmental and human rights organization with its main office in Guatemala City.
SERAC
Established in May 1995, the Social and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC) is a Lagos-based non-governmental and non-partisan organization concerned with the promotion and protection of economic, social and cultural rights (ESC rights) in Nigeria.
StreetNet International
StreetNet International is an alliance of street vendors whose aim is to promote the exchange of information and ideas on critical issues facing street vendors, market vendors and hawkers (i.e. mobile vendors) and on practical organising and advocacy strategies. In preparation for the Fifa World Cup in 2010, StreetNet International has launched a campaign in South Africa for World Class Cities for All (WCCA), seeking to create a new, more inclusive concept of 'World Class Cities' that involves the participation of the urban poor.
Urban Poor Associates
The Urban Poor Associates (UPA) is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit human rights organization. UPA is registered in the Philippines since 1992 and coordinates its activities to groups working with the United Nations (UN). UPA is an organization campaigning for the protection of housing rights and the prevention of forced evictions and illegal demolitions. It was established to educate families in housing rights matters and assist communities in eviction crises.
Urban Poor Consortium
Based in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Urban Resource Centre
The URC was set up in Karachi in 1989, by urban planning professionals,
representatives of NGOs, community organisations and teachers at professional
colleges. They felt that Karachi's official development plans ignored the larger socio-
economic reality of the city and as such were unworkable, unaffordable and
environmentally disastrous. They further felt that workable alternatives were required
and these were possible only with the involvement of informed communities and
interest groups. In the course of pursuing this mission, URC has done a great deal of
work on monitoring and preventing evictions.
Vzájemné Soužití
The civic association Vzájemné Soužití (Life Together) is a Roma-Czech NGO which has been active in Ostrava since 1997. Through community work, Life Together aims to improve the social and living conditions of poor families in need. Activities are concentrated on the areas of humanitarian, educational, social and legal counselling, and the issues of housing, employment conflict resolution and human rights. Since its founding, Vzájemné Soužití has worked regularly with the ERRC(European Roma Rights Centre) on issues including pressing for school desegregation, securing justice for victims of coercive sterilisation, and end housing rights abuses of Roma in the Czech Republic.
Contact Kumar Vishwanathan, Director Vzájemné Soužití, vishwanathan.kumar@gmail.com
Women’s Land Link Africa
WLLA is a joint initiative, developed by COHRE, the Huairou Commission, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and UN-HABITAT. This project focuses on strengthening and supporting on-going work on women's housing and land rights in Africa.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) is a not for profit human rights organization whose core objective is to foster a culture of human rights in Zimbabwe as well as encourage the growth and strengthening of human rights at all levels of Zimbabwean society through observance of the rule of law. ZLHR is committed to upholding respect for the rule of law and the unimpeded administration of justice, free and fair elections, the free flow of information and the protection of constitutional rights and freedoms in Zimbabwe and the surrounding region. It keeps these values central to its programming activities
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