Welcome to the home of Minority Rights Group International's online training programme.
What we do
MRG is the leading international human rights organization working to secure rights for ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and indigenous people around the world.
We work with minority and indigenous communities and campaign for recognition of their rights in the following ways:
- Advocacy and lobbying governments and the United Nations alongside and on behalf of minorities and indigenous peoples
- We publish authoritative publications that are widely valued by academics and the media
- We produce documentary films on a range of issues and countries – from Afro-Colombian miners to religious minorities in Iraq
- Our pioneering legal cases work advances the protection of minorities under international law.
- We deliver projects in many countries around the world (see below)
Our work, and the evaluation of our efforts, offers overwhelming evidence that the inclusion of minority communities leads to stronger, more cohesive societies.
We believe it is clear that exclusion can result in instability, conflict, and in the most extreme cases, genocide. We have worked with over 150 partners across 60 countries for more than 50 years to promote peaceful coexistence and sustainable social change.
Training
We believe that the best advocates for minority rights are members of minority and indigenous communities themselves. This is why we train minority and indigenous activists in how to peacefully advocate for their rights, and support their organisations to become more effective and more accountable.
We have provided intensive training programmes on advocacy and human rights for thousands of minority and indigenous leaders worldwide, starting a sustainable movement for change.
As well as face-to-face training, we have now established an online training course in advocacy skills (available in French, Russian, Spanish and Arabic), which hundreds of activists have completed.
This has enabled even minority and indigenous representatives based in very remote or insecure locations to understand their rights and develop advocacy skills.
Other training programmes have included:
- Training minority rights activists in Asia, Africa and Latin America in communications and campaigning skills;
- Training journalists in Europe on reporting the realities of discrimination faced by minority and indigenous communities;
- Training for Roma mediators and CSOs on anti-discrimination law and related advocacy;
- Online training course for religious minority rights activists in the Middle East and North Africa region, covering minority rights, UN systems and regional structures;
- Training for hundreds of paralegals in East and Central Africa who are thus readied to intervene when they see discrimination taking place and make sure that those affected can get access to justice.