Environment

The recent trend has shown a decline in the protection of the environment which has made it to become an issue of global concerns. The rise in this trend has been as a result of lack of sustainable management of the environment and its associated resources. The impacts of these environmental problems include soil erosion (ranging from sheet erosion to gully erosion and landslides), coastal and marine erosion, flooding (coastal flooding, river flooding and urban flooding), drought and desertification, oil pollution (from spills, oil well blow-outs, oil ballast discharges and improper disposal of drilling mud from petroleum prospecting), air pollution, urban decay and squatter settlements, industrial pollution and waste, municipal solid waste, concrete jungles/cities; loss of biodiversity (fauna and flora), and climatic change/ ozone layer depletion.

Under this thematic area, we intend to do projects on environmental conservation, environmental litigation cases and other environmental initiatives. Our projects under this thematic area would be done by collaborating with the government and environmental conservation-based organisations. Currently, we are working with the Conservation International (CI) toward the implementation of environmental conservation projects in Nigeria and The Gambia. Soonest, we intend to extend these projects to Sierra Leone and Senegal.

The problem of lack of protection of citizens’ rights in the electoral landscape produces a society that decay on the platform of irresponsible government and an insured society that feeds on incremental poverty of the people. In such situation politicians will behave with impunity in stealing votes and persecuting or killing opponent as well as corrupting electoral officers to guarantee victory at the polls by so doing the citizens becomes victims of death, injury or disappearance.

Through this thematic area, we intend to look into the issues such as election monitoring, political parties engagement, human rights awareness around elections, capacity building for journalists for monitoring human rights issues around elections. As at now, we have successfully monitored general elections in Nigeria, Gambia and Sierra Leone and successfully built the capacities of different stakeholders during the electioneering processes.

We understand the rule of law to be the fundamentals of any government. However, this has not been the case. There has been a great disparity between rights provision enshrined in the Constitution and those contained in international treaties which the government is a state party. It has been a struggle to domesticate international treaties. Specifically, human rights violations by security personnel becomes a regular occurrence and victims of the violations grow with time. This, in the long run, creates a society that has lost faith on the government and its institutions. Non state actors will compound the problems, when there is no strict adherence to the rule of law and will continue to abuse the rights of citizens. In the final analysis, the absence of rule of law will produce a lawlessness society that not only violate human rights but can lead to armed conflict.

Under this thematic area, we intend to do projects on Legal Clinic in Prisons, Human Rights Training for Prison Officials, Para legal Training for Informal Sector, LSE Litigation, Pro bono National Interest Cases. Our projects under this thematic area would be done in collaboration with donor agencies, government agencies and vulnerable victims or groups. With regards to our para legal training for informal sector, our target beneficiaries are the commercial drivers who experience human rights violations from the hands of the government securities agencies. We have started a pilot scheme on it by engaging different commercial drivers’ unions such as National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW); Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN); Tricycle Owners Association of Nigeria (TOAN); and Amalgamated Commercial Tricycle and Motorcycle Repairers and Riders Association of Nigeria (ACOMORAN).

Mental health is a state of wellbeing in which the individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to contribute to his or her own community.

Mental health influences how we think and feel about ourselves and others, and how we interpret events. It affects our capacity to learn, to communicate and to form, sustain and end relationships. It also influences our ability to cope with change, transition and life events, such as: having a baby, moving to a new house, experiencing bereavement.

Across Africa, there is insufficient government support in mandating policies towards driving change: according to the World Economic Forum, most African governments allocate less than 1 percent of their budgets to mental health services. An estimated 100 million people in Africa furthermore suffer from clinical depression, including 66 million women.

The protection against domestic violence is a very crucial issue and is indispensable in the achievement of a safe and serene family and environmental life. Traditionally, in Nigeria, as in many other African countries, the beating of wives and children is widely sanctioned as a form of discipline (UNICEF, 2001). Therefore, in beating their wives’, husbands believe they are instilling discipline in them. According to Wikipedia Violence against a wife is seen as a tool that a husband uses to chastise his wife and to “improve” her.

Violence against women goes beyond beatings. It includes forced marriage, dowry-related violence, marital rape, sexual harassment, intimidation at work and in educational institutions, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, forced sterilization, trafficking and forced prostitution.