Human Rights Day 2025: Our Everyday Essentials
We can’t lose sight of the fact that dignity and human rights are non-negotiable for they are “our everyday essentials”.
In a time of uncertainty and insecurity, Human Rights Day, celebrated every 10 December, reaffirms the importance of reconnecting with human rights. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, underscores that “we must reconnect with human rights, remembering that they are about people – about their needs, wants and fears, as well as their hopes and aspirations”.
The theme of the UN Human Rights Day 2025, Human Rights: our Everyday Essentials emphasizes the enduring relevance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and its core values — equality, justice, freedom, and dignity. These everyday essentials, as highlighted by the UN document, “are enshrined in the UDHR: the right to an adequate standard of living (Article 25), which guarantees food, basic needs, and a healthy environment; the right to freedom of opinion and expression (Article 19), which ensures access to information; the right to education (Article 26), which enables understanding and informed decisions; and the right to rest and leisure (Article 24), which allows time for well-being and connection with others. Yet, these simple acts are not possible everywhere”.
“Our Everyday Essentials” Campaign
The UN “Our Everyday Essentials” campaign seeks to strengthen people’s understanding of human rights and rebuild trust in their relevance. It hopes to engage the “silent majority” – those who believe in human rights but may not yet see themselves as advocates. It aims to raise awareness and to encourage meaningful and responsible collective engagement. The campaign calls us to rediscover that human rights are positive, essential and attainable.
Human rights are positive because they protect us. They enable us to live in joy, freedom, and solidarity. They allow us to experience security and peace. They are present in the safety we rely on, the air we breathe, in a clean environment, the food we eat, the words we speak, and the choices we make.
Human rights are essential because they form the common ground that unites us across differences of race, culture, gender, belief or origin. When the world feels unsafe, unstable, the right to speak freely, to participate in decision-making process, to live without fear become the steady anchor that holds our societies together.
Human rights are attainable because they begin with us – with our small everyday choices and actions. Eleonor Roosevelt said 80 years ago: “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”
Be a part of the campaign
The OHCHR invites everyone to share what matters most in their daily lives, that is, what they consider essential in their day to day life. They can access the various channels of participation – via the online form or on social media using the hashtag #OurEverydayRights. Together, these personal experiences will form a rich mosaic of voices and perspectives.
IIMA and VIDES will continue to work weaving networks with governments and non-governmental organizations and civil society actors to raise awareness of the values of human rights and empower young people worldwide through education and Human Rights Education so that each human being can fully enjoy their rights as everyday essentials.
Let’s continue to join forces to make human rights a reality for all !!
To find out more about IIMA’s mission, visit our website.