This project will build the capacity of grassroots Human Rights Defenders in the oil rich region (Hoima and Buliisa districts) in Uganda to advance the rights of women and marginalised groups. The project will target HRDs, with a bias on women HRDs, working on land and other natural resource-related rights.
An estimated 2.5 billion to 3.5 billion barrels of oil deposits were discovered in Lake Albert stretching to the shores of the lake in Hoima and Buliisa districts. Its exploration has triggered rights conflicts threatening the existence of the indigenous people and has significantly impacted on rural livelihoods. It has led forced evictions, land grabbing, and displacements in violation of human rights and turning into conflicts. The project will equip HRDs to advocate for rights of all.
SRI will convene strategic trainings and workshops for grassroots HRDs working in natural resource-related rights to empower them in delivery their services more effectively and also embrace the use of technology through the use of a mobile application installed in the mobile devices of all the trained HRDs to track, document and share gross human rights violations to our team of lawyers. This will enable our team to robustly respond to all the human rights violations reported in the region.
It is expected that 60 grassroots HRDs (half will be women) are empowered to deliver their services to advance rights and access to justice for all more effectively, over 25 leaders of HRD civil society organisations trained on legal compliance, Publication of a detailed, accurate and verifiable report on cases that participant HRDs often have to deal with to identify patterns for response, a better understanding of human rights that is capable of influencing policy and practices among others.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).