Today it's #HumanRightsDay - and the organisation I founded just under five years ago, RightsInfo has changed its name to EachOther (@EachOtherUK) and launched a new website eachother.org.uk. You can read more about the change here (thread)👇
Here it is in a nutshell. When I set up RightsInfo in 2015, it was a tiny project with one half-time member of staff and am ambitious aim to change the way we communicate about human rights. /1
The name was actually an accident! It was originally called the Human Rights Information Project but when I tried to make it into a Twitter logo, it wouldn't fit and I noticed that the central words fit together quite nicely /2
RightsInfo has done some amazing work which I'm incredibly proud of, influencing the human rights sector hugely, and has grown into a fully fledged, multi-award winning charity with a staff team and board. /3
But in the meantime, the world around us has changed and many of the things I feared when I started thinking about how we can communicate the *facts* and *values* of human rights better back in 2015 have come to pass /4
Brexit came out of nowhere, but in another sense it was exactly the kind of internationalist value breakdown that I was worried about (though in the context of the European Convention on Human Rights) back in 2015 /5
Now, our society is unfortunately more divided than ever and there is a hugely worrying trend of turning on minority groups. As is always the case in societies where strife and division is raised. /6
*That is what human rights were designed to prevent*.
They are about seeing the essential humanity in each other,
understanding each other,
and protecting each other. /7
They are about seeing the essential humanity in each other,
understanding each other,
and protecting each other. /7
And as we have learned in recent years, it isn't enough just to focus on information, you have to engage people's values. So that's what @EachOtherUK will do. All the great news, video and creativity RightsInfo is known for, with an added focus on story telling and empathy /8
Obviously, as with all changes there is a risk, but we have worked long and hard behind the scenes to think about what human rights are really about, and how to get people to think again about them.
Follow @EachOtherUK and support our journey eachother.org.uk/support/
Follow @EachOtherUK and support our journey eachother.org.uk/support/
@EachOtherUk And here is a really rather nice video explaining the change
