Our Programs
Programs
· Unmask Them:
“Unmask them” is a human rights campaign that was implemented in 2018 to defend and advocate rights of Egyptians, and that calls upon the Egyptian government to drop all existing criminal investigations into NGOs and to repeal the law 70 of 2017 in accordance with its domestic and international obligations to protect freedom of association and to end all forms of rights violations.
· AlMahjar Can:
“AlMahjar/the diaspora Can” was the theme of the first edition of “10 Days of Activism for the Arab Diaspora” an event that will be held annually, and that took place from 15 to 25 January 2021. This campaign was designed, implemented, and managed by a group of Arab diaspora activists who took part in HuMENA’s training program who was also named “AlMahjar Can”. The campaign aimed to shed light on the challenges facing MENA diaspora activists, as well as the capacities of the exiled diaspora activists, to raise awareness about the tools that can be used by diaspora communities in order to contribute to the political and social change in their countries of origin, and to advocate for a transformative change in the policies and procedures that affect the situation of MENA diaspora, especially policies adopted by host governments and international organizations, with the aim of promoting the adoption of new strategies and tactics that improve the capacities of the MENA diaspora activists and enable them to play a greater role in the policymaking and decision-making processes.
MENA CITIZEN-BASED GOVERNANCE PROGRAM
· Co-Gov
Co-Gov is a ‘Think&Do Tank” that aims to involve civil society actors, activists, HRDs, refugees, diaspora activists and civil society organizations in the policymaking process, assuring a pluralistic, open and accountable process of policies analysis, research, decision-making and evaluation as a way of achieving participative, inclusive and responsible democracy in MENA.
THE MENA DIASPORA ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM
· Activism in Exile
“Activism in Exile” is an ongoing project launched in November 2020 and that seeks a greater involvement of Arab Diaspora in the international policy making process aiming to improve human rights situation in the Arab world, and to achieve stability in the region, through empowering Arab Diaspora activists and organizations with knowledge and skills, advocating for engaging Diaspora in legitimate policies in fragile societies, and providing input to support collective international responses to conflict and migration in the Arab world.
· The MENA Diaspora in Action
This project targets a group of MENA diaspora activists and HRDs and provides them integrated intensive training program in 3 domains: Advocacy, resilience, and security. As a result of the training, participants will develop and implement an advocacy campaign aiming to secure better engagement of diaspora’s activists in the policymaking process.
VIRTUAL INNOVATION HOUSE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
· Global Freedom of Expression
HuMENA is one of the two worldwide partners of Columbia University in the City of New York within its project “Global Freedom of Expression”. This project seeks to advance the understanding of the international and national norms and institutions that best protect the free flow of information and expression in an inter-connected global community with major common challenges to address.
· MENA Rights Atlas
A core problem exists in the nascent civil society and media sphere in different MENA countries generally: The misuse and subjectivism of terms used In violations reporting, project development and Implementation what causes the disseminated information less credible in terms of preservation of objectivity and professional standards.
MENA Rights Atlas is a website that includes a dictionary covering terms related to human rights, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law, civic engagement, and organizational development and management of civil society organizations, offering definitions, synonyms and translation of technical words and terms in three languages, Arabic, English and French, making the human rights and civil society reliable language easy accessible to concerned stakeholders. The Atlas will also provide the MENA civil society, media, and concerned citizens with informative toolkits like videos and guides, as well as relevant web-based human rights education tools. Moreover, the MENA Rights ‘Atlas will include a mapping of all “not translated to Arabic” human rights texts, laws, conventions, protocols, resolutions, procedures…etc. in order to translate them at a later stage.
· MENA Digital Museum of Surveillance and Censorship
“The MENA Digital Museum of Surveillance and Censorship” is a project aiming to promote the Right to know and freedom of speech in MENA through addressing the large information gap that currently exists around critical developments related to censorship and Internet freedom in MENA, and making the information at the hand of every citizen, as well as providing citizens with an alternative open archive for censored materials and activities and involve them with daily monitoring through allowing them to report censorship and share observations.