The Asian Human Rights Commission, based in Hong Kong, was one of the first organisations to receive a Tactical Tech micro-grant. This grant provided a full set of our toolkits and guides for participants attending their human rights and communication workshop. The event took place last August, with support continuing since this time. It was attended by 12 participants from countries throughout the Asia region.

“Most of the participants in our workshop have been working actively on human rights for a long time” explains Norman Voß from the Asian Human Rights Commission. “Our training workshop focused on communication strategy and the effective use of technologies, in particular the internet, for advocacy. Basic blogging and documentation of human rights cases was familiar for many, but learning how to use video, mobile phones or advanced websites for their advocacy work was less familiar. In this way Tactical Tech's toolkit provided a useful supplement to this training.”

As part of the training all participants had to come up with one new sample campaign that aligned with their working objectives and in the course of the workshop the activists designed a title, a theme, set up a Facebook presence for it, a blog and finally posted a video relating to their campaign. Some of these campaigns have continued after the workshop, such as the campaign for food security for the Korkus of Khalwa, or a campaign against arbitrary arrests in Thailand at or a blog about the right to food of the Korku people of India. A summary of some of the workshop's themes and tools introduced is available on this workshop blog.

Tactical Tech's materials complemented the practical, hands-on and human rights focus of the workshop, explains Norman. “Many of the participants felt that your toolkits and guides alongside the workshop training, would advance their advocacy work well into the future.”

Tactical Tech will now support the Asian Human Rights Commission with another grant for their next training event to take place next month.