HRJGI is a Nigerian civil society organization with the goal of raising national awareness of the citizens' constitutional rights and on a long-term basis, mobilize and educate the public on human rights in order to remove legal, cultural, religious and other constraints against the attainment of economic and social justice and equity in the society. HRJGI's ongoing efforts use technology as a real tool for community building and encouraging action to protect, preserve and restore human rights. Leadership training is central to this effort - and for the first time in Nigeria, this activity has been brought online. Session One of the Global Human Rights Leadership Training Institute is now drawing to a close. This innovative program has brought HRJGI's work outside of its borders to participants throughout Africa, Europe and North America.

Background

HRJGI is an independent, non-governmental and not-for-profit voluntary initiative which was established in 1999 by Nigerians from different professional, cultural and social backgrounds to enhance knowledge, respect and observance of human rights, and to encourage exchange of information and experiences for the betterment of the citizenry through the instrumentality of law, education, enlightenment and humanitarianism.

Justice Group membership is drawn from a rich blend of activists and other professionals working together on a shared commitment to justice, the rule of law and human dignity. The idea of the group was to build awareness about those rights as well as investigate and advocate various means for securing their implementation.

In addition, our programs aim at broadening access of individuals and communities and strengthening their participation in the design and implementation of social and economic policies/programs which affect them. We work with communities and groups that cut across gender, literacy, age and social lines, and use focused group pilot projects to measure the impact our interventions are making in target communities.

Our mission is to support NGOs, CBOs, and other grassroots organisations in Nigeria by building their capacity which among others include:

• Fostering local, regional and national cooperation in the NGO sector towards sustainable development through knowledge building and strategic action;
• Encouraging information exchange among various NGOs with same aims, objective and philosophy;
• Working to promote human rights, access to justice and development by building partnership between NGOs, CBOs, and the general public to secure a quality life of human dignity.

Philosophy

Our philosophy is to provide focused quality assistance that brings about concrete results, which benefit the community and its citizens. To become the most strategic provider of the rights of the most vulnerable in the society.

ICT is essential to the mission of HRJGI

ICT is essential to the mission of HRJGI both in terms of its communications potential and through the enhanced research avenues it opens up for our organization. Particularly in the areas of CyberSecurity and for our training programs, the use of ICT makes work possible across cultural and geographic boundaries in ways that have not been possible before.

HRJGI has recently completed the first session of a new online Human Rights Leadership Training course which is the first of its kind. The pilot group of participants was relatively small in number, just over 20, but excitingly drawn from a very wide range of countries throughout Africa, Europe and North America: Albania, Benin, Cameroon, Canada, Congo, East Timor, Ethiopia, Germany, Kosovo, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, South Africa, Togo, Uganda, USA, and Zimbabwe.

The course consisted of five modules introducing concepts and history of international human rights policy development, and leading into practical leadership training, and the use of ICT both for leadership efforts and to organize grassroots Human Rights initiatives. At the end of the course is a final project designed to bring the learning back to the communities each of the participants represents. More information is available on our website (http://justicegroup.org).

Barriers and Successes

Despite our success with this training, HRJGI faces ongoing difficulties with the instability of technical services in Nigeria. We suffer frequent power outages which have damaged our computer equipment, making it difficult to work. Maintaining connection to the Internet is also very costly, and international restrictions governing funds transfers to Nigeria make fundraising outside of our local community an eternal uphill struggle. We are still working to improve public perception of our community - especially in the US. Our work in the field of CyberCrime detection and restitution is helping us to make inroads in this area. HRJGI maintains communication with the various companies defrauded as well as the law enforcements agents of the various countries including Interpol, Ghana CID, Nigeria CID, Nigerian Postal Service Agency (NIPOT), the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and others. To date, the Human Rights and Justice Group has prevented fraudulent shipments to Nigeria of goods worth over US$500,000. In most cases, the illicit transactions have been intercepted online, thereby preventing shipment before the goods are in transit.

Lessons learned

Communication is key. ICT has made the delivery of messages almost instantaneous in our society, yet response times are still often frustratingly slow. This is particularly true with larger organizations which may have a reporting process or require approval for the release of information. We have learned to never be afraid to reach out many times to the same organizations and individuals. In addition, building community and encouraging collaboration is very important. Having many people contributing a small part of the picture has often been our best, perhaps only, way of building up a clear case in CyberCrime detection. Without the support of the many official bodies and private citizens who have contributed to these efforts our success rate would surely not have been as high.

For organizations involved in Human Rights initiatives, it is our experience that the clearer your objectives are, the more likely to achieve them your organization is. You can't be a leader if you're afraid of responsibility and accountability. Leadership begins with the willingness to embrace responsibility. Accepting responsibilities that you are given is not enough. You have to be the one who steps forward and say, "I want to do that!"