About us

BIHR is a human rights organisation that is committed to challenging inequality and injustice in everyday life here in the UK. We aim to achieve this by bringing human rights to life – supporting people to use human rights principles and standards to improve their own lives and as a tool for organisations to develop more effective public policy and practice.

We believe that although human rights are inherent in us as human beings, their full value is lost unless we articulate, claim and actively use them in our everyday lives. Our driving ethos is to shift human rights from the realm of abstract, legal documents into living, breathing tools that individuals and organisations can use in all aspects of their lives. We believe that this will reduce individuals' suffering (e.g. children being bullied) and increase their empowerment (e.g. carers asserting their rights to preserve a family life whilst caring for a loved one). At a time when engagement with traditional political structures is declining, we are also excited by the potential for human rights to stimulate new ways to 'have a say' and influence society's direction.

Find out more about why human rights matter to people in the UK, what we do and how we can work together to bring human rights to life:

What we do

Information and resources, training and consultancy, demonstration and pilot projects, research and policy analysis, lobbying, media and legal interventions. More »

Current activities

Vision, mission and beliefs

As a minimum, human rights are a safety net for all of us, at home, at school, at work, in the places in which we have friendships and networks and in society as a whole. But they are also a set of guiding principles which can help us go beyond the minimum standards of decency and create a fairer, more tolerant society in which everyone has an equal chance to flourish as human beings. More »

Strategy

We have an ambitious and exciting strategy for the next three years (2006/07-2009/10). More »

Operating principles

We put human rights into practice in our own work through our operating principles. More »