IRMO is part of the London Communities Programme, a human rights initiative funded by City Bridge Foundation and the Baring Foundation supporting organisations across London to strengthen their use of human rights in practice.

As part of this work, we have been working closely with the British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR) to deepen our use of a human rights-based approach across our services, advocacy and campaigns. While human rights are already at the core of our work, this programme is helping us build more practical tools and confidence to use the Human Rights Act in our day-to-day work with the community.

Over the past months, we have taken part in a series of training sessions focused on different areas of rights in practice, including health, employment and, most recently, education. These sessions are helping our team to better identify when rights may be at risk and to use clear, rights-based arguments when supporting service users or engaging with public authorities.

This work builds on a guide we co-developed with BIHR to support both staff and community members to understand how human rights apply in everyday situations and how they can be used to challenge unfair decisions. You can access the guide here.

We look forward to continuing this work over the coming months. If you are a partner organisation or community member interested in learning more about what a human rights-based approach looks like in practice, or how to use the Human Rights Act to defend your rights in everyday situations, get in touch.