Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we help people who have been persecuted for standing up for human rights by providing them with funding to pay for essential items such as food, medical bills and travel costs. This includes taking care of their families. Children can be particularly adversely affected by the maltreatment of their parents, and the grants we provide are often used to ensure they have somewhere safe to live and are still able to attend school.
In addition to our emergency relief grants, we also help people to settle in new countries and to requalify so that they secure work. Some 83% of our bursary grantees with whom we remain in contact are now in employment or continued education, and over half have devoted their future lives to changing the world, be it by campaigning for laws and rights or by raising awareness of injustices – demonstrating how this type of support enables people to play a meaningful role in society.
You can see more about the impact we have achieved and read about our beneficiaries in our annual report.
Looking to the future, we have ambitious plans for growth. There are many thousands of ordinary people around the world who are being persecuted for upholding human rights and we know we are only reaching a small number of those who need our help.
We want to do more. Much more. Which is why we have set ourselves a big challenge: we want to raise £4,000,000 over the next five years so that we can reach an additional 2,000 beneficiaries with a grant of £2,000 each.
To achieve this goal, we need more help and so have invested in two part-time members of staff: a fundraising manager, Becky Slack, and a communications and transformation officer, Joanna Pitta. They are developing some exciting new ways for people such as yourself to get involved with the work of Prisoners of Conscience, so that together we can make an even bigger difference to the lives of courageous human rights defenders. We’ll be announcing details in due course. If you don’t want to wait, and would like to donate right now, you can do so here.
We couldn’t do what we do without the help of the public whose generosity transforms the lives of people who have been persecuted for their acts of conscience, to protect and advance human rights around the world. If you are one of our supporters, thank you.
