Human rights and action on equity

At Corra, we increasingly recognise that human rights and action on equity are a golden thread throughout our work. The principles of human rights underpin our work on; participation, listening, drugs and alcohol, housing, children and young people, disability, The Promise, racial equity, poverty, and international development. Corra’s guiding themes of voice, power and change are strongly aligned with human rights-based principles of participation, accountability, non-discrimination and empowerment.

Human rights principles are interwoven in work on diversity, equity and inclusion and anti-racist action, two areas which are key to our strategy and where Corra has made commitments for both internal and external action.   

Externally, Corra has been active in advocating and raising awareness about the importance of human rights and equity. We have held podcasts and discussions on human rights and on equity, and have contributed to policy discussions on equality and human rights and on children’s rights.

Corra is exploring how we can expand our support for human rights-based approaches, including through collaboration with other funders; we are a member of Ariadne, European Funders for Social Change and Human Rights. 

We have made a number of grants with the aim of advancing human rights, tackling racism, and advancing equity, you can read about these in the tabs below.

illustration people sitting round a table with speech bubbles as if in discussion

Sky fund to tackle racism

sky group logoCorra has been working to deliver funding from Sky TV to tackle racism, including antisemitism, in Scotland. 

A first step in this work was to build on our existing knowledge through undertaking a consultation to gather views on the current state of play on tackling racism in Scotland and on the gaps where current or emergent needs are not being fully met. This consultation was undertaken by Corra staff from March to May 2022 and you can read the consultation report here. 

Responding to the priorities identified by the consultation, Corra has made the following six grants to organisations working in different ways to combat racism: 

The work funded will include the development of educational resources to help raise awareness and understanding of different communities, research and advocacy on combatting racism, support for people affected by hate crime, including culturally-appropriate counselling, and the development of networks to support youth workers and young people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities. 

Corra has also made an advocacy grant to Urban Youth Project to support an initiative to help raise awareness of hate crime in Scotland.

Human rights grants

Corra has made three grants with a clear focus on human rights since 2020.

Making Rights Real logo

In 2020, Corra supported Making Rights Real: the organisation was in the process of being established and the Corra grant has helped to get the new organisation on its feet. Our funding has contributed to MRR’s organisational set-up and development of policies and systems, and to its work with marginalised communities using human rights-based and highly participatory approaches to support people and communities to claim their rights.

Making Rights Real – Using rights to improve communities

 

A year of Childhood 2021 logo

In 2021, Corra supported the Children’s Parliament with a contribution to their ‘Year of Childhood’ initiative. This 2021 programme had a strong focus on rights-based approaches and the central role of children’s voices in a series of activities aimed at promoting good children’s human rights-based practice and raising awareness of children’s human rights.

Children's Parliament logo

Year of Childhood – Children’s Parliament

Children’s Parliament: Children’s human rights, participation & engagement

 

In 2022, Corra provided Human Rights Consortium Scotland with funding to support the voice and power of civil society to create positive change in the current human rights context. This grant is to contribute to the costs of a three-year Policy Participation Officer post which will work with the HRCS network to strengthen advocacy, awareness raising and policy engagement.

Human Rights Consortium Scotland – Civil society network to protect human rights in Scotland 

 

Human Rights Consortium Scotland logo

The Equity Programme

In 2021, Corra developed The Equity Programme with a donation of £150,000 from Stewart Investors. This was designed as a participatory grant making programme, led by people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.  £65,000 was distributed across six groups, who were supported by Corra staff to design how they would spend the funds.   

Read the learning from the Equity Programme: Insight Briefing.  You can also read the community stories from the funded groups here as well as watching community videos from MCASS and Mohila Ogrojatra. 

 

 

Henry Duncan awards and equity

In response to the historic inequity of funding and Corra’s proactive focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, in 2021, of the £1m of Corra’s Henry Duncan Grants for community based mental health and wellbeing support, over a third (£330,000) was ringfenced for charities led by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities. The decision to set aside a portion of the funding came from recognition of historic inequity in funding, and of the particular impact of racial injustice on mental health and wellbeing. 

Read more about our learning from Henry Duncan Grants: Bringing a Racial Justice Lens to our Grantmaking. 

In 2022, at least £300,000 (approximately 30%) of the fund budget will support organisations that are led by Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic communities supporting children and young people experiencing inequality. 

#MakeRightsReal (20 Sept 2022)

Exploring the current human rights landscape in Scotland

Exploring human rights event – transcript

Exploring human rights event – video