Human Rights Education is activist education. As students, we must be aware of what is going on in our community as we learn about these important documents. This list is a starting point to reach out and get involved with an issue that is important to you.
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945. It is currently made up of 193 Member States. The mission and work of the United Nations are guided by the purposes and principles contained in its founding Charter.
International Criminal Court
Trying individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression.
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 7 million people who take injustice personally. We are campaigning for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all.
We are funded by members and people like you. We are independent of any political ideology, economic interest or religion. No government is beyond scrutiny. No situation is beyond hope.
Human Rights Watch
What We Do
Investigate: Our researchers work in the field in 100 countries, uncovering facts that create an undeniable record of human rights abuses.
Expose: We tell the stories of what we found, sharing them with millions of social media and online followers each day. News media often report on our investigations, furthering our reach.
Change: We meet with governments, the United Nations, rebel groups, corporations, and others to see that policy is changed, laws are enforced, and justice is served.
Human Rights Educators USA
is a growing network dedicated to building a culture of human rights by providing an innovative forum for HRE practitioners and supporters to learn, network, and exchange professional expertise and better serve our growing HRE community.
United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. It seeks to build peace through international cooperation in Education, Sciences and Culture. UNESCO's programs contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals defined in Agenda 2030, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015.
Greenaction: For Health and Environmental Justice
Greenaction mobilizes community power to win victories that change government and corporate policies and practices to protect health and to promote environmental justice.
Communities for a Better Environment
Communities for a Better Environment is an environmental health and justice non-profit organization, promoting clean air, clean water and the development of toxin-free communities.
West County Toxics Coalition
The West County Toxics Coalition (WCTC) is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3), multi-racial membership organization founded in 1986 to empower low and moderate-income residents to exercise greater control over environmental problems that impact their quality of life in County Costa County, particularly West Contra Costa County (West County), in Northern California.
Indigenous Environmental Network
The Indigenous Environmental Network is a network of Indigenous Peoples empowering Indigenous Nations and communities towards sustainable livelihoods, demanding environmental justice, and maintaining the Sacred Fire of our traditions.
Environmental Defense Fund
The Environmental Defense Fund partners with businesses, governments and communities to find practical environmental solutions.
Critical Resistance
Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe. We believe that basic necessities such as food, shelter, and freedom are what really make our communities secure. As such, our work is part of global struggles against inequality and powerlessness. The success of the movement requires that it reflect communities most affected by the PIC. Because we seek to abolish the PIC, we cannot support any work that extends its life or scope.
Californians United for a Responsible Budget
CURB is a statewide coalition of 70 grassroots organizations working to reduce the number of people in prisons and jails, the number of prisons and jails in the state, and shift state and local spending from corrections and policing to human services.
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
We are named after Ella Baker, a brilliant, black hero of the civil rights movement. Following in her footsteps, we organize with Black, Brown, and low-income people to shift resources away from prisons and punishment, and towards opportunities that make our communities safe, healthy, and strong.
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
LSPC organizes communities impacted by the criminal justice system and advocates to release incarcerated people, to restore human and civil rights, and reunify families and communities. We build public awareness of structural racism in policing, the courts, and the prison system, and we advance racial and gender justice in all our work.
Services Immigrant Rights & Education Network (SIREN)
SIREN’s mission is to empower low-income immigrants and refugees through community education and organizing, leadership development, policy advocacy, civic engagement, and legal services.
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA)
CHIRLA is a California leader with the national impact made of diverse immigrant families and individuals who act as agents of social change to achieve a world with freedom of mobility, full human rights, and true participatory democracy.
Immigration Center for Women and Children (ICWC)
The Immigration Center for Women and Children (ICWC) is a non-profit legal organization providing free and affordable immigration services to underrepresented immigrants in California and Nevada. ICWC strives to provide security and stability for children who are abused, abandoned or neglected and for immigrants who are victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and other violent crimes.
California Immigrant Policy Network
Each year, the California Immigrant Policy Center identifies important immigrant-related policy issues being considered by our state’s leaders and lawmakers. CIPC plays a leadership role in Sacramento, working alongside lawmakers, advocates, policy makers, and community members to support policies that benefit all Californians.
Moms4Housing
Moms for Housing is a collective of homeless and marginally housed mothers. Before we found each other, we felt alone in this struggle. But there are thousands of others like us here in Oakland and all across the Bay Area. We are coming together with the ultimate goal of reclaiming housing for the community from speculators and profiteers.
Tenants Together
Tenants Together is a statewide coalition of local tenant organizations dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of California tenants to safe, decent, and affordable housing. As California’s only statewide renters’ rights organization, Tenants Together works to improve the lives of California’s tenants through capacity-building, movement-building and statewide advocacy.
Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco
HOUSING RIGHTS COMMITTEE has fought for tenants’ rights since 1979, when a group of seniors at Old St. Mary’s Church came together to organize against condo conversions displacing the elderly.
Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP)
WRAP was created in 2005 by leaders from Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency, Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco, Los Angeles Community Action Network, Real Change, Sisters Of The Road, Street Roots, and Street Spirit. WRAP was created to expose and eliminate the root causes of civil and human rights abuses of people experiencing poverty and homelessness in our communities.
Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign represents a force of more than 3 million members and supporters nationwide. As the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer civil rights organization, HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ people are ensured of their basic equal rights, and can be open, honest, and safe at home, at work, and in the community.
SF LGBT Center
The mission of the SF LGBT Center is to connect our diverse community to opportunities, resources and each other to achieve our vision of a stronger, healthier, and more equitable world for LGBT people and our allies.
Oakland LGBTQ Community Center
The Oakland LGBTQ Community Center is dedicated to enhancing and sustaining the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals, our families and allies, by providing educational, social, and health-related activities, programs, and services.
Transgender Law Center
Transgender Law Center (TLC) is the largest national trans-led organization advocating for a world in which all people are free to define themselves and their futures. Grounded in legal expertise and committed to racial justice, TLC employs a variety of community-driven strategies to keep transgender and gender-nonconforming people alive, thriving, and fighting for liberation.
Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund
Disability affects people of all races, ethnicities, genders, languages, sexual orientations, socio-economic status, and gender identities. DREDF works to end disability discrimination that results from systemic barriers, negative attitudes, and exclusion. While discrimination affects all disabled people, multiply marginalized disabled people of color experience far greater discrimination, marginalization, segregation, and exclusion than those who are white.
Disability Rights California
Disability Rights California advocates educate, investigates, and litigates to advance the rights, dignity, equal opportunities, and choices for all people with disabilities.
National Disability Rights Network
The National Disability Rights Network works in Washington, DC on behalf of the Protection and Advocacy Systems (P&As) and Client Assistance Programs (CAPs), the nation’s largest providers of legal advocacy services for people with disabilities.
World Enabled
World Enabled is a global education, communications, and strategic consulting group. We support companies and governments with the full implementation of legal mandates for inclusion and diversity. Our work and research initiatives further innovative approaches to inclusive urban development. With our international partners, we help build inclusive societies where people with disabilities and older persons can fully develop their talents and reach their full potential.
Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth
Restorative Justice (RJ) is a set of principles, a philosophy, focused on mending broken relationships to create a better future. It is a fundamental shift in the way that we think about and does justice, in the way that we do community. What happens when we stop thinking about justice as “an eye for an eye”? What happens when we think about harm in ways that don’t involve retaliation or vengeance, but healing and transformation?
Restorative Justice On the Rise (RJOTR)
To provide connection, advocacy, education, and inspired action as a public service to individuals and communities seeking to proactively improve relationships and structures within their spheres and our world.
Californians for Justice
Californians for Justice is a statewide youth-powered organization fighting to improve the lives of communities of color, immigrants, low-income, LGBTQ, and other marginalized communities.
The School Of Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
SOUL is a school to build a movement.
SOUL is working to lay the groundwork for a strong social justice movement by supporting the development of a new generation of organizers rooted in a systemic change analysis -especially people of color, young women, queer and transgender youth, and low-income people
Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth
Restorative Justice (RJ) is a set of principles, a philosophy, focused on mending broken relationships to create a better future. It is a fundamental shift in the way that we think about and does justice, in the way that we do community. What happens when we stop thinking about justice as “an eye for an eye”? What happens when we think about harm in ways that don’t involve retaliation or vengeance, but healing and transformation?
Restorative Justice On the Rise (RJOTR)
To provide connection, advocacy, education, and inspired action as a public service to individuals and communities seeking to proactively improve relationships and structures within their spheres and our world.
Californians for Justice
Californians for Justice is a statewide youth-powered organization fighting to improve the lives of communities of color, immigrants, low-income, LGBTQ, and other marginalized communities.
The School Of Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
SOUL is a school to build a movement.
SOUL is working to lay the groundwork for a strong social justice movement by supporting the development of a new generation of organizers rooted in a systemic change analysis -especially people of color, young women, queer and transgender youth, and low-income people
Mission Neighborhood Health Center
Mission Neighborhood Health Center honors our Latino roots with a tradition of providing compassionate, patient-centered care. We advocate for health equity and deliver innovative, high quality services responsive to the neighborhoods and diverse communities we serve.
HealthRIGHT 360
HealthRIGHT 360 gives hope, builds health, and changes lives for people in need. We do this by providing compassionate, integrated care that includes primary medical, mental health, substance use disorder treatment and re-entry services.
San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium (SFCCC)
SFCCC envisions a future in which all persons have access to quality health care in culturally-, linguistically-, and population-sensitive, community-based settings.
SFCCC is a partnership of nonprofit health centers that provides leadership and fosters innovation to improve community health.
Berkeley Free Clinic
The mission of the Berkeley Free Clinic is to empower individuals and communities by providing accessible, client-centered health services and information.
National Congress of American Indians
The National Congress of American Indians, founded in 1944, is the oldest, largest and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization serving the broad interests of tribal governments and communities.
International Indian Treaty Council
The International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) is an organization of Indigenous Peoples from North, Central, South America, the Caribbean and the Pacific working for the Sovereignty and Self Determination of Indigenous Peoples and the recognition and protection of Indigenous Rights, Treaties, Traditional Cultures and Sacred Lands.
Native American Rights Fund
The Native American Rights Fund is a non-profit organization that uses existing laws and treaties to ensure that U.S. state governments and the U.S. federal government live up to their legal obligations.
Cultural Conservancy
Our mission is to protect and restore indigenous cultures, empowering them in the direct application of traditional knowledge and practices on their ancestral lands.