Human Rights Commission

The Murihiku Human Rights Network grew out of ‘Taku Manawa My Human Rights’ which is a project aimed at increasing human rights capacity and capability in communities. The network is made up of a number of organisations and aims to increase the ability of people in those communities to monitor human rights violations and advocate more effectively for the realisation of human rights that impact on them.
Network members frequently advocate on behalf of individuals and groups where race relations and human rights are an issue, run human rights education activities, coordinate key human rights events such as Race Relations Day, Human Rights Day, White Ribbon Day and Waitangi Day.
The network also acts as a link between the Human Rights Commission and communities disseminating human rights and race relations information both ways.

Project 2011

Your Journey Exploring Human Rights

The Taku Manawa Murihiku Human Rights Network held a human rights Expo at the Southern Institute of Technology. Over 30 community organisations were represented at the Expo providing them with an opportunity to showcase their services and illustrate the ways that human rights are incorporated into the work that they do. Workshops and presentations were also held throughout the day.

The purpose of the Expo was threefold.

• to create an event that illustrated the importance of human rights within the community. To assist in illustrating this to the public they developed a resource in the form of a ‘Human Rights Passport’. The passport contained information about human rights, discrimination and emphasised the responsibility of citizens to protect the rights of others. It also provided space for people to write in their personal details and then record their human rights journey. This resource encouraged people to see human rights as part of their everyday life and to engage with human rights as members of the larger community.
•  Secondly, the Expo provided a way to strengthen and formalise the newly formed Taku Manawa Murihiku Human Rights Network. Through the process of organising the Expo the group learnt about the different strengths of group members and the kinds of human rights activities that they wanted to be engaging in as the Taku Manawa Murihiku Human Rights Network: Opportunity for the Taku Manawa Murihiku Human Rights Network to introduce itself to the greater Southland community.
• Finally, the Expo served to provide a forum for community organisations and members of the public to come together and share knowledge and resources about human rights. In the evaluation, representatives from the organisations commented that they benefited most from the networking that they did on the day. The combination of stalls and workshops meant that organisations and individuals could network, gather information about the different community organisations in the region and have access to human rights-based education at the workshops that were held throughout the day.

Contact : Sandie Knapp malonesouth@woosh.co.nz