EarthRights School Alumni

Graduates of the EarthRights Schools (ERS) are a group of inspiring individuals from Burma, the Mekong region, and Amazon rainforest areas dedicated to the non-violent defense of human rights, the advancement of social change and the prevention of environmental abuses.

ERS alumni come from diverse backgrounds representing over 45 ethnic groups and are dispersed across 13 countries. Despite such diversity, their shared experiences have brought them together to form a vibrant network of activists. ERS alumni have experienced first-hand the human rights and environmental abuses caused by governments, corporations, and international financial institutions on their communities and livelihoods.

ERS alumni put their skills into action in their home communities by organizing trainings for fellow activists, leaders, and journalists to equip them with the skills necessary to raise local voices against environmental and human rights abuses wherever they occur.

The EarthRights Schools

The EarthRights Schools (ERS) are intensive, year-long, experiential learning programs that bring together local activists and community leaders with the goal of increasing their capacity to lead non-violent social change in their communities. EarthRights International (ERI) currently runs two EarthRights Schools focusing on Burma and the Mekong region, and between 2001 and 2005 ERI, together with the local Ecuadorian NGO Centro de Derechos Economicos y Sociales, co-facilitated the Amazon School for Human Rights and Environment.

The ERS-Amazon trained indigenous and community leaders from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela in topics such as human rights law, environmental monitoring, development politics, fact-finding, documentation, advocacy, and media work.

The ERS-Burma works to develop a vibrant and well-informed civil society in Burma and along border areas through intensive training of young human rights and environmental activists from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

The ERS-Mekong brings together activists from each of the six Mekong countries to address concerns about the impacts of development on communities and the environment, the role of development banks such as the ADB and World Bank, and related human rights, transparency and participation issues, within the Greater Mekong Sub region.

To learn more about EarthRights Schools, please visit the EarthRights International website.

The EarthRights Alumni Website

The purpose of the EarthRights School alumni website is to support alumni by raising their voices to the international community. The website highlights the activities and accomplishments of the alumni by opening channels for them to obtain additional support.

Opinions and policy positions shared on this website do not necessarily reflect the views of EarthRights International or any other contributing individual or organization, except the individual or organizational author to whom specific material is attributed. Contributing individuals and organizations, including EarthRights International, neither endorse nor assume liability or responsibility for any content available on this website which is attributed to any other organization or author, nor make any warranties that such content is accurate. The content on this website is the sole responsibility of the attributed individual or organizational author.