Soaring levels of poverty, cuts to legal aid, a social security system that no longer supports us when we need it, crumbling health and social care provision, and a broken asylum system. London is a microcosm of a society where, far too often, human rights are not being respected, protected or fulfilled by those with public power. People at the sharpest end of these issues face persistent and extensive disadvantages in health, housing, education, culture and the justice system.

But the capital is also the home of hundreds of flourishing, daring, community-led organisations providing front-line services to meet the needs of groups experiencing disadvantage head on. From Law Centres to poverty action networks, and from psychosocial first aiders taking a culturally informed approach to mental health to food banks tackling a food system that is fundamentally unsustainable, London’s civil society supports every corner of our capital.

For the British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR) and Just Fair, our work over many years has shown us that when community groups like these are supported to use international and domestic human rights law in their work, they can, in turn, support individuals and communities to know and claim their rights and build real-world change for those facing discrimination and disadvantage.

In October 2023, Just Fair and BIHR launched a new five-year project funded by the Baring Foundation and the City Bridge Foundation: the London Human Rights Communities Programme aims to support London-focused civil society organisations to develop and use human rights-based approaches to create social change. As thought leaders with distinct experience, Just Fair and BIHR are experts in working alongside civil society organisations to build the rights knowledge of local communities, supporting them to participate in the development of policy and practices that affect their lives, and to increase the ability of those with responsibility for upholding rights to fulfil their duties.

The first stage of the project is a series of four ‘Human Rights Open Days’, two of which took place in November, in Southwark and Shoreditch, and two of which are planned for late January 2024, in West and North London. We encourage all London-focused civil society organisations with an interest in social justice to attend.

The open days provide a chance for organisations to meet others working across the four corners of our capital, to support us to identify the key human rights issues facing communities in London and to better understand the systemic and systematic barriers to rights realisation. They also provide community groups with some initial human rights learning, the first steps of our support to build the confidence of community groups to use human rights advocacy to create social justice. Working with this cohort, we will then seek to fill some of these gaps – launching resources and workshops that respond to the specific needs of Londoners and the groups that support them, with Just Fair focusing on economic, social and cultural rights, and BIHR focusing on the Human Rights Act 1998.

The aim of year one is for our training and resources to have built the capacity of organisations to respond to the needs of their communities. If successful, this will be followed by four further years of funding to support the use of human rights-based approaches by four locally led projects.

Readers can sign up to receive updates about the programme here.