The Network of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) transitioned “from protest to proposal.”   COIAB systematically captured decision-making positions in order to participate in the formulation and implementation of public policies in favor of the lives and rights of indigenous peoples.

The Ruta Pacífica is a movement of Colombian women who have directly confronted the violence of the armed actors with large mobilizations of caravans, marches, and public events, crossing the country and entering conflict zones under military control. There, the women of the Ruta have broken the silence in order to mobilize the voices for peace in their country.

Peru’s Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDDHH) is globally recognized as one of the most successful and effective coalitions in the world. The importance of bringing ourselves together in order to have more strength and greater impact is often discussed, but few have been able to achieve this as well as Peru.  The global experience of the human rights movement, unfortunately, is filled with coalitions that have failed both because of divisions as well as a lack of advocacy.

Human rights practitioners are often located in the Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) of big cities, while most of the crisis situations, the need for monitoring and defense of human rights are located in rural areas.  In Chiapas, Mexico, the rural indigenous communities have been confronting years of repression and harassment.  This tactic case study describes the model of the Network of Human Rights Defenders, organized in Chiapas by Miguel Angel de los Santos.

The Southeast Asian Council for Food Security and Fair Trade (SEACON), based in Malaysia, utilized a participatory research process in Southeast Asia not only to document and understand how free trade was affecting small scale food producers in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Burma, Cambodia and Laos but also as an effective means to inform and engage producers themselves in the process and issue. Finally, the participatory research process provided informed and concrete evidence to back their policy advocacy on trade policies in the ASEAN region.

Forum Asia worked with the Royal Thai Police to promote community-oriented and human rights friendly policing in Thailand and other countries in Asia. They utilized the introduction of a unique, computer based police training education program to engage and enlist the support of key leadership of the Royal Thai Police to champion the training tool. The computer-based police training program was a valuable tactic within their strategy serving to build mutual trust, acknowledgement and support while also helping police to more effectively address their immediate day-to-day policing challenges making the police better aware of human rights as well as more professional.

CARE-Bangladesh, through its NGO Service Delivery Program, recognized that a critical stride in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh relied upon the engagement of key stakehold­ers—particularly transport workers themselves, their unions, and the trucking companies which employ their services. As a result, CARE-Bangladesh was able to establish partnerships, particularly with the transport workers’ unions, in order to initiate a behavioral change program to prevent a possible HIV epidemic while also providing quality health care services to transport workers throughout the country.