Brief History  

Human & Democratic Rights (HDR) programme formerly known as Civic Rights Programme (CRP) was started in 1997 by Sungi as a part of its strategy of directly linking advocacy and issues of structural change to its development activities, deals solely with basic issues of political awareness and fundamental rights in the overall social development process. HDR is operational for the last 13-year, directly aspires towards the organization’s stated goals, focuses on the issues of political empowerment, gearing towards the very idea that the pursuit of Rights Based Development (RBD) is meaningless without inducing informed citizen and political actions and reflections. Under this broad parameter for strengthening civil society, HDR seeks to erect abilities of the selective activists among partner communities of working areas, catalyzing as alternate leadership for a struggle to dismantle oppressive power structures and as effective representatives for the persuasion of fundamental human and democratic rights. Now after 13 years of Sungi’s struggle basically conceived a breading ground for activism the somewhat ambitious program HDR has shown significant impacts that people now assert themselves to demand their rights, the activists trained under this program play significant roles and are providing an alternative socio-politically marginalized leadership in their respective areas i.e. as office-bearers, members of different decision making committees, elected councillors, trained political parties leadership at district level, trained and vigilant journalist, Area Coordination Council (ACC) press secretaries, representatives of Constituency Relations Group (CRG) and local campaigns builders. 

HDR is operationalzed under the philosophy of Rights Based Development (RBD) from the standpoint of attacking the forces and factors of exploitation which obstruct development. This demands that equity, democracy and social justice be overarching themes, alongside the other declared objectives of any programmatic intervention. This implies that development thus has more to do with: 

• Democratic processes 

• Political choices 

• Enabling rather than providing 

• Articulating interests and opinion without fear of repression 

Sungi’s approach of relating human rights and development is aimed at enabling the weaker segments of the society to improve their condition and position through awareness and empowerment. Towards such an end, awareness is seen precondition for empowerment. HDR planned and implement its activities in a manner where these enable marginalized to express and claim their rights. 

Objectives 

•  To initiate and facilitate collective mobilized efforts to restructure a strong civil and just society having democratic values
• To focus on particular social issues, which are representative of oppressive power structures

Sungi and the HDR  

Sungi’s approach is quite different from most of the civil society organizations working at local level with community partners; it attempts to address the root cause of under-development by highlighting the structural forces at work in any given situation. The goal then is to mobilize communities to dismantle oppressive power structures so as to secure their fundamental rights and to achieve true development. 

Salient features of the HDR include cpacity development on issues such as legal rights and obligations, a research facility that documents and publicize information directly pertaining to Sungi partner’s lives, and an educational theatre group comprising volunteers from Sungi partner communities.