CEHRD Background
The Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) is a non-governmental and non- profit organization based in Ogale, Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State, in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. It was founded on August 15, 1999 as the Niger Delta Project for Environment, Human Rights and Development (NDPEHRD) and re-incorporated under its new name CEHRD on Au
gust 23rd, 2005 following its board decision. Vision
A just society with an enabling environment for the realisation of the people’ fundamental human rights. Mission
To forge a common link with the rural Niger Delta communities primarily, through research, participatory training, campaigns and advocacy on the problems confronting them. Equipping them with the basic knowledge of their situation and encouraging them to non-violently address the issues themselves. Its core values are Honesty, Accountability, Sincerity, Transparency, Selflessness, Commitment and Courage. CEHRD was registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission as a charity organization on August 23, 2005 with the charity number CAC/IT/NO. 19258. Since its formation in 1999, CEHRD has been working in partnership with several national and international organizations to promote and enlighten local communities on environmental conservation, local empowerment, human rights awareness campaigns, human security in conflict and emergencies, rural health and education among others.
1. CEHRD’s scope is local and national in nature. While we liaise with international groups by way of networks and coalitions, our primary focus remains improving on peoples’ traditional knowledge of biodiversity conservation, monitoring, documenting and reporting of human rights violations, and advocating for justice, particularly in the Niger Delta region.
2. Our works cut across all strata of society in terms of age, gender and abilities
3. The ratio of women to men we serve is 70:30. CEHRD’s work spans through the entire Niger Delta. Our main focus is on the rural areas, its people, biodiversity conservation, rural health and population. We also monitor document and report human rights violations across the region. In some of the cases, CEHRD provides legal advocacy to victims of human rights violations. The Niger Delta is a conglomerate of diverse ethnic and linguistic groups bound together in a chronic chain of poverty and marginalisation resulting from what twentieth century Scholars now call the ‘natural resource curse’. The major ethnic groups inhabiting the area are the Ogoni, Ijaw, Urhobo, Isoko, Ndokwa, and Ogba among others. The region is endowed with rich natural vegetation (tropical rainforest), mangrove forest and diverse species of fresh and salt water bodies emptying itself into the Atlantic Ocean. This is in addition to the large volume of oil and gas buried below its soil and offshore. Geopolitical Map of the Niger Delta States
A critical issue in the delta today is not only the increasing incidence of poverty, but also the intense feeling among people that the government and its agencies ought to do far better considering the enormous resources flowing from the region. Today, the rural communities are affected by the high prices of goods and services which are tied to the oil industry, thereby making poverty more pervasive than conventional measurements reveal, [Niger Delta Human Development Report, UNDP, 2006]
There is an inevitable and serious conflict of interest between Niger Delta communities that bear the environmental damage of oil extraction and the rest of the nation for which oil money is essentially a free good. Delta populations, clearly a minority on a comparative national scale, regularly lose these struggles. Had they some authority over environmental issues, many current problems might be more manageable. Lacking this, and given the federal government’s control over all subsurface resources as well as “ownership” of all land, all Delta issues inevitably become national issues. In its campaign to “buy off” Delta discontent on the cheap, earlier administrations frequently corrupted Delta community leaders. There is a deep distrust in the Delta concerning the federal government and a feeling among local populations that most other Nigerians care little for their problems, so long as the oil flows. Delta populations constantly campaign for a larger share of the federal cake, most of which originates in their homelands but ended in the pocket of those in power. Within the various rural communities of the oil rich but cash poor region of the Niger Delta States, CEHRD identifies specific target groups based on need and tailors its intervention programs in such a direction as to address or mitigate the issues they face. We are mindful of the fact that government intervention programmes has not been able to adequately address the problem of the people, often because they are implemented without any consultation with the people especially as it has to do with planning and decision making process. The clarion call has always been that of improving on their consciousness regarding their rights so that we can develop people that are organized, conscientized and mobilized towards a positive change. Practically, these are achieved through public interest research, campaigns and lobbying and advocacy. In recent times, CEHRD’s works cover the following thematic areas;
I. Rural Health and Population Program
CEHRD runs this program to create awareness, better knowledge, and active care for the health of the rural people in the Delta geographic communities. We also promote health protection through enlightenment, and outreach campaigns against prevalent diseases such as tuberculosis, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, etc, and planned parenting. Environment and Conservation Program
CEHRD engages in conservation of forests (rainforests, flood plains, and mangrove forests), wild life protection and restoration and bio-diversity conservation, better agricultural and fishing practices to enhance food security. The environmental advocacy project also comes under this program. It promotes non-violent activities, eco-tourism, volunteerism, community stewardship, and management of local natural resources. Human Rights Program
CEHRD undertakes human rights campaigns, advocacy, and litigation, on behalf of victims of human rights violations. This program also pursues good governance through engagement, civic and voter's education. Also, anti-arms proliferation and unregulated arms trade campaigns are coordinated under this category. Officials of this project monitor small arms trade and its misuse in the hands of government security forces, non state actors, militia, and armed civilian (“cult”) groups, gangsters, etc., and its consequences on the people, especially women and children, and work towards its prevention, minimization and eradication through outreach, education, and legislative campaigns. Child Rights Program
In July 2009, CEHRD formalised its partnership arrangement with Stepping Stones Foundation to monitor, document and reports child rights violations in six states (Rivers, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Akwa-Ibom and Edo) of the Niger Delta. The project, in line with the mandate of Stepping Stone Nigeria (SSN) “is dedicated to promoting and protecting the rights of vulnerable and disadvantaged children such as the so called “child witches” in the Niger Delta. We are working towards a world where every child is free and their rights are protected under a just law. Media for Justice Project
Since 1999, The Centre for Environment Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) is an organization that has been working with urban and rural community people, local and International NGOs to effectively defend human rights [True Tragedy Report - a study carried out by Amnesty International (AI) and CEHRD], implement community developmental programs ["Tomorrow is a new day project" - a project funded by the EU], and engineered projects focused on community awareness building using non-violent advocacy [www.cehrd.org]. Furthermore, the organization through the Media For Justice Project has trained community people to use ICT and video advocacy as a tool in their campaigns, the Media For Justice Project has since its inception carried out series of trainings and capacity building programs, for 200 community people while also taken part in community organization and mobilizations in over 20 rural communities and 10 urban slum settlements in Rivers State. (www.mediaforjusticenigeria.org)
IV. Community Development Program
CEHRD believes that rural people have an investment in their future, and for community development to be meaningful, it should respond to the initiatives and aspiration of the local community. Such effort must improve on the basic economic and social conditions for the community, and should visibly benefit a large number of the community through high-impact and quickly implemented activities. While we promote sustainable development of the community, in partnership with government where appropriate, we oppose ill-planned "Development Projects" that neglect input from local peoples and destroy the basis of their rural livelihood and economies. It is obvious that because of the unevenness in evolution of societies, the development process is often initiated and led by certain categories of people in the community privileged by its history to be enlightened - the top-down approach often leads to “dumped development”. Nevertheless, the development process can only be successful if along the way there emerges a collectively enlightened people. Apart from this, we are left with a community of beggars and “benefactors”. Over the years, CEHRD has been careful to ensure that it is not bought over by politicians. This it has maintained by not accepting money from government, oil and gas multinationals or their agencies. The oil money which contributes over 90% of the national revenue since 1965 ends predominantly in the pocket of those in power and their allies. It has the ability to corrupt! In a bid to actualising its mission and strategic objective, CEHRD is in partnership with several network and coalitions at the local and international level, sharing similar mission and vision. CEHRD is the coordinating secretariat of the West African Human Rights Defenders Network [WAHRDN]. WAHRDN was established in May 2005, at the end of an international conference of human rights organisations in Dakar, Senegal. The network represents 14 national human rights coalition in the West African Sub-region. From its conservation unit, CEHRD is a leading member of the African Mangrove Network [AMN] working together to protect and conserve mangrove forests throughout the African Continent. Other networks and coalitions which CEHRD belongs to include People’s Movement for Human Rights Education [PMHRE], Publish What You Pay [PWYP], Gender and Constitution Reform Network [GECORN], Coalition for Accountability and Transparency in Extractive Industry, Fisheries and Forestry in Nigeria [CATEIFFIN]. On its rural health and population program, CEHRD is a member of the Rivers State chapter of the Civil Society Network on HIV/AIDS [CISNAN] working in the field of HIV/AIDS campaigns, care, support and nutrition. For transparency and accountability in governance, CEHRD is also a member of the Niger Delta Citizen Budget Platform [NDCBP] and the Transitional Monitoring Group [TMG]. Community interaction among rural people is the anchor of group dynamics. Today, the long term neglect of successive governments in the Niger Delta states have brought about perceived and real marginalization which is forcing each and every community to demand separate states on their own. It must be emphasized that communities in the Niger Delta remain marginalized because they have failed to take their own destinies in their own hands in the political, economic and social spheres. In this culture of cynicism about government, economic stagnation and hopelessness, historical, political fragmentation, low-grade violent conflict permeates the zone leading to institutional disintegration. More than the payment of 13% royalties on oil production is needed to encourage multiple and historically competing /conflicting communities to start working together to bring more moderate and mature leaders beginning from the community level back into the centre of decision making, to co-opt violent youths and to find constructive and promising avenues of activity for a currently “lost generation”.
