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Human Rights Day 2008
To commemorate Human Rights Day 2008, Ashoka recognizes the role of Ashoka Fellows who are making real and sufficient progress towards ensuring that every person in the world has their basic human rights. Ashoka takes this opportunity to raise awareness of their ground-breaking approaches and relentless commitment to creating a more just and prosperous world for all.
Ashoka's Law for All Initiative (LFA) works across sectors and across countries to strengthen human rights, democratic spaces, and good governance. Together we are reviving the rule of law, expanding the role of law, and empowering marginalized individuals as changemakers.
Anjuman Behbood Khawateen Talash (ABKT)
At a time when educating girls was considered heretical,
Shad’s father ensured that she was educated at home. Shad is displaying that same bravery by strengthening women’s voices in isolated areas of Pakistan where men typically determine women’s place in society. Through microcredit and education programs, she helps women become politically active in male-dominated spaces. Recently, LFA intervened when months of threats culminated in a dire warning: Shad's organization must cease operations, or a suicide bomber would be sent to their office. Today, Ashoka is helping Shad relocate her office and sustain operations in a safer location.
Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
As a child, Ken was haunted by the sight of village girls being taken to be circumcised. Today his organization exposes police brutality to curb the torture of individuals and combats the practice of forced female circumcision across Kenya through a combination of community monitoring and civil litigation. Due to the delicate nature of his work, Ken received anonymous death threats from Kalenjin tribe leaders after the Rift Valley erupted into violence following the 2007 presidential elections. Ashoka's LFA stepped in and helped Ken relocate to a safer neighborhood while simultaneously helping him seed a broad post-conflict reconciliation effort.
Centro de direitos humanos de Sapopemba
Even today, in the peripheries of Sao Paulo, the poor suffer human rights violations. Valdênia defends their rights by providing them with education and access to legal mechanisms of protection. However, her courageous stance against violence has its drawbacks, often causing her family and supporters to be put at risk. To help protect Valdênia's work, Ashoka helped connect her with a top Brazilian law firm to assist her work, exposed threats against her in the media, and helped her relocate to Spain while she participated in a program for human rights defenders facing threats.
Impulse
It was Hasina's deep involvement with the youth volunteer program she created years ago that led her to investigate the problem of child trafficking in India. Through Impulse, she has expanded her work towards ensuring that human rights are provided for all. Hasina has developed a model to combat child trafficking in Northeast India through a comprehensive strategic plan, to be adopted by all state and citizen organizations in the region and in nearby countries: Bhutan, China, Myanmar, Thailand, and Bangladesh. To help spread this model; Ashoka connected Impulse with legal and tax assistance and other Ashoka Fellows to ensure the success of this effort.