Citizenship
citizenship
The Citizenship Rights Project
The citizenship rights project is a project that seeks to ensure equal and non discriminative access to the right to a nationality and entitlements of citizens as per the 2010 constitution and relevant law. It advocates for the full realization of citizenship rights and promotes equitable access to vital legal identity documents such as birth corticates, Ids, and Passports.
The project started in 2014, coinciding with the start of the Global Action Plan to end statelessness in 10 years (2014 – 2024) popularly known as the # I Belong Campaign. From October 2024, the Global Alliance to End Statelessness (GAtES) is the new collaborative platform to accelerate solutions to statelessness.
Our Model
We support stateless communities and communities facing citizenship challenges to realize their rights, access civil documentation, and undertake advocacy efforts. Our model involves working with a pool of paralegals and community ambassadors from the affected populations to strengthen the community capacity to advocate for their rights and solutions. Paralegals are equipped with relevant legal knowledge and skillsets important for grassroots legal empowerment and community-led solution seeking. These include facilitation skills, community sensitization and movement building, storytelling, influencing policy, and advocacy with government.
Paralegals and community ambassadors create legal awareness, provide information on procedures, requirements, and benefits of timely acquisition of legal identity documents, and offer legal assistance and technical support necessary for registration and acquisition of documents including case management and follow up with government.
Our Approaches
- Community sensitization and mobilization.
- Community skills building andLegal empowerment.
- Community-self-identification/development of community registers.
- Movement building and Community-led change making.
- Story telling & Advocacy for legal reform.
- Strategic collaboration with CRS, NRB, and Immigration Services.
- Casework on citizenship salesforce.
Project Stakeholders
- Government authorities (NRB, CRS, Immigration Services, NGAOs, & National Focal Point on Statelessness).
- CSO/NGO actors (Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), Refugee Consortium of Kenya (RCK) Namati, Haki na Sheria, Nubian Rights Forum (NRF), and Paranet.
- Local Members of Parliament and relevant parliamentary committees.
- Affected populations and host communities.
- East African Nationality Network (EANN)
- Southern Africa Nationality Network (SANN)
- Global Alliance to end Statelessness (GAtES)
Ongoing Project Activities
- Engagement with National Government Administration Officers (NGAOs) and relevant Registration Departments.
- Continued engagement with Members of Parliament and advocacy for legislative reform.
- Engagement with affected populations in the Coast, Central, North Rift, and South Rift .
- Support and collaboration with the National Focal point on Statelessness to fast-track solutions to statelessness.
- Continued Data Collection and development of community registers.
- Mobile and ID registration targeting stateless and host communities living in severely underserved areas.
- Community paralegal activities- support mechanisms that bridge the gap between the state and vulnerable populations in accessing documentation.
Key Project Achievements
- Since 2015, HCO has supported over 30,000 children to access birth registration and documentation through mobile birth registration exercises conducted in collaboration with civil registration services.
- Within the same period, over 10,000 children have accessed birth registration through paralegal assistance i.e. sensitization on the benefits of birth registration laws and policies, application procedures and requirements, and support in document application and follow-up with civil registration services.
- With the support of UNHCR and working closely with the government and Coalition on Nationality, Citizenship and Statelessness Empowerment (CONCISE), HCO played a significant role in the registration of the Makonde as citizens of Kenya in 2016.
- In 2023, approximately 7,000 individuals from the Pemba community were confirmed as Kenyan citizens following concerted advocacy interventions by the community, HCO and its allies.
Project Supporters
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR
NAMATI – Kenya
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