On International Human Rights Day, Omam Njomo Esther, Executive Director of Reach Out Cameroon and Global Peace Champion, has delivered a compelling call to reaffirm human rights as “everyday essentials” rather than distant ideals.
Speaking from a context deeply affected by conflict, displacement, and widening inequalities, she emphasized that the true battleground for human rights is found in homes, schools, and communities where people struggle daily for safety, dignity, and hope.
Omam Esther highlighted the growing vulnerabilities faced by women and girls, children seeking safe learning spaces, and civil society actors who continue to serve under increasing threat. She noted that human rights are lived and defended by ordinary people, frontline workers, peacebuilders, and community advocates whose determination to uphold justice often comes at significant personal risk.
Yet even as the demand for protection and support rises, the Executive Director of Reach Out Cameroon warned that civic space is shrinking in many parts of the world, including at home. Human rights defenders and humanitarian workers, she stressed, “carry immense burdens with limited protection,” and their safety is central to sustaining peace, accountability, and long-term reconciliation.
“Their courage sustains the foundations of peace,” she said, calling for stronger safeguards for those who stand on the frontlines of human dignity.
Reflecting on this year’s theme, “Human Rights: Our Everyday Essentials,” Omam Esther urged leaders, institutions, and communities to translate commitments into action.
She appealed for a shift “from promises to protection, from declarations to implementation, and from silence to solidarity,” insisting that dignity, justice, equality, and peace must be reclaimed as shared values that underpin stable and inclusive societies.
Her message was both a warning and a rallying cry. Human rights, she asserted, can no longer be privileges accessible only to a few, they must become lived realities for all. “Humanity must win,” Esther concluded. “And it begins with each of us.”
Her words, delivered on a day dedicated to universal rights, reinforced a central truth, the global human rights movement depends not only on international frameworks but on the everyday courage of those who defend dignity on the ground, often quietly, often at risk, and always with hope.
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