Who we are

The Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa was founded in 2005, with the purpose to engage both Civil Society Organizations and the Government to enhance the respect and promotion of Human Rights in Cameroon. We have a vision and a mission to take the human rights movement to higher heights. We are committed not only to Human Rights issues, but also to the development of democracy as a political culture that advances human liberty and sets a fecund platform for the advancement of Human Rights. Our goal is to be the foremost Centre for Human Rights research in Africa.  This goal can be realized only by staying connected to the various communities at all times while working closely with Governmental and non-governmental institutions at the national and international levels.

To achieve our goals, CHRDA operates under different thematic areas including; Human Rights, Peace and Democracy, Gender, Humanitarian, Research and Communication.

What we do

Since the creation of CHRDA, we have continuously engaged in monitoring, documenting and reporting, on the human rights situation in Cameroon, as well as training duty bearers and right holders, on how to promote and protect human rights. In 2019, we were the first domestic Civil Society Organization to publish a comprehensive human rights report on the ongoing-armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon. We have been able to train thousands of duty bearers and rights holders, on how to monitor and document human rights violations, strategic litigation, gender-based violence, and so on. The mainstreaming of gender equality, advocacy for policy change, the behavior of individuals, as well as train community groups to be human rights friendly, have been at the forefront of all of our work.

CHRDA is the first organization to have successfully implemented the SASA Methodology in Cameroon as a means of combating gender-based violence and encouraging gender equality within the political, economic and sociocultural domains. CHRDA have also been involved in peacebuilding initiatives including training women, youths and community leaders, on how they can be peace ambassadors in their various communities. CHRDA have been able to empower more than 200 internally displaced women with sustainable handy skills in Cameroon. As a part of our programming area, we have been actively involved in humanitarian advocacy, trainings at CHRDA’s empowerment center and as well as, published several tools on humanitarian principles, in armed conflicts including scenario-based pamphlets on the do’s and don’ts, of armed conflicts with audiovisuals and other media tools, to reach a wider audience.

Areas of Support/Intervention

1. Physical and Digital Security

As a result of an increase in the rate of attacks, on human rights activist, and media personalities, CHRDA would like to carry out trainings, through workshops on aspects of physical and digital security, to equip human rights activist and media personalities on how to manage reporting and documenting in times of crisis and insecurity. This comes at a time, where a journalist has recently been killed in Bamenda, on the 7^th of May 2023, by name Anye Nde Nsoh, few days after the World Press Freedom Day. The training will touch on aspects, on how human rights activist can respond in times of insecurity as an emergency, in subject to;

• Physical security; threats to our physical integrity, and property.
• Digital security; threats to information, communication and equipment.
• Psychosocial security; threats to our psychosocial wellbeing
• Holistic security analysis, strategies and tactics.

2. Capacity Building for Staff

It is important for staff to continuously build capacity, to improve on their output in terms of human rights monitoring, documenting and reporting in other to be able to carry out proper investigation, interviews and build facts on human rights atrocities and condemnation. In other to be a human rights activist, it takes a series of trainings and this improvement comes with an increase in capacity building. As a result of our work, we face challenges taking into consideration, our context and political system.

Human rights defenders, media personalities and Civil Society Actors have been largely targeted by state and non-state actors since the outbreak of the Anglophone war. These attacks have been life-threatening and various platforms have been continuously used to target human rights defenders, which reduces the quality of their work. Why it is important for staff to continuously to build capacity.