Human rights and access to justice the focus of nearly £800,000 in new grants

The Baring Foundation is pleased to announce four major new funding partnerships this year to support access to justice, the defence of human rights frameworks and the use of human rights based approaches to create positive change for communities.

Community Foundation for Northern Ireland (CFNI)

In September the Foundation awarded CFNI £300,000 over three years for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Fund.

This grant will help to extend the duration of the Human Rights Fund, which was established in 2015 by Atlantic Philanthropies, aiming to consolidate the fragile peace process by supporting work to ensure the implementation of human rights and equality commitments made in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.

In this new phase, the Fund will increase the number of organisations it supports to include those working on themes including gender, health, socio-economic rights, digital rights, racial justice and climate, with the aim of creating a vibrant and cohesive human rights support network for Northern Ireland.

Other funders supporting the Fund include the Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Social Change Initiative and CFNI itself.

Scottish Human Rights Fund

In June, the Foundation’s trustees awarded Corra Foundation £300,000 over three years to host a new Scottish Human Rights Fund.

The Fund will aim to empower organisations, communities and individuals to hold duty bearers to account and create the conditions that support a vibrant and sustainable human rights sector in Scotland. The creation of the Fund recognises the potential for both significant impact in Scotland and as a model for others, as Scotland considers the incorporation of major UN treaties into law.

Other funders supporting the Fund include the Robertson Trust and the Corra Foundation. The founding funders hope to create a fund of £10 million over 10 years.

Human rights based approaches in London

This year, the Foundation began a five-year collaboration worth £1.75m with fellow funder, the City Bridge Trust, to support the growth of human rights based approaches to help communities in London create the local change they want to see.

Two initial grants have been awarded to JustFair and the British Institute of Human Rights to act as development partners to the programme.

The five-year programme will offer funding to four London community organisations to implement HRBA projects with local communities. You can find out more about this process and how to participate here.

Access to Justice Foundation

Last but not least, in September the Foundation awarded the Access to Justice Foundation £120,000 over three years to highlight how the use of the law including legal advice can be used to bring about social change and galvanise independent funders to support this work.

Strengthening Civil Society Programmes Manager, Jannat Hossain, says:

“We are delighted to be working with these new partners on exciting initiatives to protect and advance human rights and to preserve access to justice as both become increasingly precarious for all of us. Whilst all different, these four grants reflect our commitment to collaboration, and we hope that by pooling our resources we can have a bigger impact.”