Human Rights First Rwanda Association (a.k.a Rights Rwanda)

e general assembly. The general assembly convenes twice a year
Its main objectives are

(a) To promote human rights education and provide legal assistance to poor and vulnerable groups in the Rwandan community at Large. Vision

Human Rights First Rwanda Association envisages a just and equitable society. BACKGROUND AND ACTIVITIES

since its inception in late 2005 it has carried out a number of activities thus including organizing a workshop on the need of a legal aid forum in Rwanda in partnership with the Leading women’s rights activist group Haguruka, Danish Institute of Human Rights and other Civil society organizations. This lead to the formation of the Rwanda Legal Aid Forum which comprises of 36 organizations both local and international intervening in Justice and Human Rights in Rwanda. Through its initiatives of regional networking the organization is among the founding members of the East African Civil Society Forum (EACSOF) and a current member of the Governing council. The forum brings together over 100 Non Governmental organizations from Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. Through EACSOF it has been part of the wider campaign of denouncing illegitimate governments that take power through undemocratic means an example is the case of Zimbabwe and the Kenyan election crisis where we issued communiqués and press releases. Through its advocacy campaigns it is involved in the campaign to allow civil society lawyers to represent their clients in courts of laws in Rwanda. The organization spears headed the drafting of a position paper and an announcement to members of parliament from 20 civil society organizations highlighting the needs and plight of indigent, poor and vulnerable groups who have no means and have been denied access to justice. Human Rights First is partnering with the International Commission of Jurist-kenyan section on the program of Eastern Africa International Criminal Justice Initiative to advocate against the culture of impunity in the Region

The organization has been involved in a number of civic education programs; it has trained communities on electoral laws and constitutional protected rights of individuals in the electoral process during the parliamentary elections. It provides legal aid and human rights education programs through community clinical legal aid project that assist poor, indigent and vulnerable persons more especially women in rural districts. The clinic has an outreach to schools, prisons and community at large using university law students . The organization has been conducting debating programs in Schools so as to awaken young citizens to be more proactive in analyzing and discussing issues that affect its society openly. It has trained over 23 organizations of mainly women who are HIV positive as a result of sexual violence during the genocide on various laws that protect them and Human rights issues in partnership with Women to Access to Care and Treatment (WE Act). As a result it assisted in the formation of the first network of people living with HIV/AIDS that fights discrimination. Rwanda Community Law Anti-Discrimination Network/Dufatanye. The organization is among the lead organizations that advocated for the abolition of the death penalty. It partnered with AJPRODO a youth association to sensitize youth on gender based violence and it consequences. The organization commissioned a research on public interest litigation in partnership with the Legal Aid Forum Rwanda whose main aims were to assess ways and means of bringing PIL test cases. It was part of the taskforce that was charged with developing a standard paralegal manual for NGO paralegals in Rwanda. In partnership with the Ministry of Justice, Danish institute of Human Rights, and three other NGOS, the organization conducted a baseline survey on legal aid in Rwanda. The survey was aimed at identifying various gaps in access to Justice in the country and come up with various recommendations. HRFRA spearheaded the campaign to decriminalize LGBTS in the Draft Rwanda penal code. It was part of a taskforce that wrote a position paper that was presented to parliament that lead to the dropping of article 217 which had proposed that Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Trans-gender and Intersexual groups be criminalised along with any initiative aimed at improving their situation. HRFRA also participated actively in making recommendations, position paper and advocacy on drafting of the New Rwandan penal code more especially on issues pertaining to tabling recommendations to the right of women to have a safe abortion.