Open call: Nhimbe Trust online consultation with Cultural Rights Defenders

The event, which will be held from 10.30am to 12.pm (CAT), will bring together CRDs from across Africa to discuss their work, the challenges they face, and explore opportunities for further collaboration with OHCHR and the UN human rights mechanisms.

UN special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights Alexandra Xanthaki, will open the meeting.

To register, participants should send an email to [email protected] indicating their organisation’s name as well as whether they would take the floor. A brief information about the organisation’s work is appreciated for the preparation of the meeting.

The consultation will focus on:

• Sharing experiences and challenges faced by CRDs.
• Exploring opportunities for collaboration with OHCHR and the UN human rights mechanisms.
• Creating a network of CRDs across Africa to promote these rights and drive policy changes.

The objectives of the consultation are as follows:

• To provide a platform to discuss experiences of cultural rights defenders, including challenges in carrying out their work, and to explore opportunities for further collaboration with OHCHR and engagement with the UN human rights mechanisms.
• To create a network of cultural rights defenders in the region to raise awareness on their work, and continue and take this discussion to all levels – international, regional and national – with a view to promoting these rights and bringing about legislative and policy changes.
• To inform the development of OHCHR’s training on cultural rights, which also aims to help cultural rights defenders better understand and claim their rights.

“According to the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, cultural rights protect the rights for each person, individually and in community with others, as well as groups of people, to develop and express their humanity, their world view and the meanings they give to their existence and their development through, inter alia, values, beliefs, convictions, languages, knowledge and the arts, institutions and ways of life,” a statement reads. “They are also considered as protecting access to cultural heritage and resources that allow such identification and development processes to take place.”