The award, which is now in its 10^th year, is presented annually, to raise awareness of the work of Human Rights Defenders in Uganda. The award recognises and honours the achievements of an individual Human Rights Defender active in Uganda, who has made an outstanding contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights in the past year.

Individuals or organisations can nominate candidates for the EU HRD Award.  Nominations from human rights organisations active in Uganda are particularly welcome.  Human Rights Defenders are people who promote and protect universally recognised human rights and fundamental freedoms. These include civil and political rights, as well as economic, social and cultural rights. Human Rights Defenders also promote and protect the rights of members of minority groups. The broad range of activities carried out by Human Rights Defenders can include the following:

• documenting and reporting human rights violations;
• seeking remedies for victims of human rights violations through the provision of legal, psychological, medical or other support;
• combating the culture of impunity which can hide systematic and repeated breaches of human rights and fundamental freedoms;
• mainstreaming a human rights culture, and transmitting information about HRDs at the national, regional and international levels;
• advocacy for the respect of human rights.

Nominations should be sent by e-mail to: edith.okech@eeas.europa.eu  

Nominations should be submitted using this NOMINATION FORM.doc and should be a maximum of one page in length.

The deadline for nominations for the 2021 EU HRD Awards is 19^th March 2021.

A shortlist of three candidates will be announced in early-April and the winner will be announced at a ceremony hosted by the Embassy of Germany in April 2021.

Recent winners of the EU HRD include Aimé Moninga (2020), who campaigns for victims of sexual violence during conflict and heads the organisation Men of Hope and William Amanzuru (2019) who is an environmental protection activist and works with the Friends of Zoka Forest. Peter Sewakiryanga (2018-joint winner) leads the Kyampisi Childcare Ministries, an organisation that supports children who have been victims of sacrificial practices and Pamela Judith Angwech (2017) campaigns for the empowerment of women and youth and founded the Gulu Women Economic Development and Globalisation organisation. Robert Ssempala (2016) is an activist for media freedom and national coordinator at the Human Right Network for Journalists.