About Us
Origins of SEARCH
SEARCH is a successor to the Southeast Asia Fund for Institutional and Legal Development (SEAFILD) established by CIDA in 1996 whose aim was "to enhance the capacity of governance and civil society to address human rights, democratic development and good governance challenges in Southeast Asia".
When SEAFILD came to an end in 2002, human rights was judged to have been its most important area of focus both in terms of commitment of funds and in terms of demand for sub-projects. In August 2004, the consortium of Geospatial SALASAN, the International Centre for Child Rights and Development and Four Directions International was contracted by CIDA to pick up the SEAFILD mandate, but under a new name, the Southeast Asia Regional Cooperation in Human Development (SEARCH) Project.
The project is executed by a Canadian consortium made up of GeoSpatial International, the International Centre for Child Rights and Development, and Four Directions International, and implements its work in the field primarily through three regional organizations: The United Nations Interagency Project Against Trafficking (UNIAP); The Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism; and FORUM-Asia.
Our Mission
The SEARCH Project's vision is the promotion and protection of fundamental human rights in seven countries of Southeast Asia, with special attention to three particularly vulnerable groups: children, ethnic minorities and migrant workers, with gender as the cross-cutting theme.
The foundation of the project is the Rule of Law, leading to a focus on capacity development for civil and government institutions including the development of collaborative approaches for civil, criminal and administrative remedies to redress the infringement of the human rights of the beneficiaries. Focusing on the Rule of Law, SEARCH provides a common base for defining human rights issues, efficacy of legal and judicial systems, and the enforcement of human rights in the region.
Partnering for Impact
The SEARCH project identified three regional partner organizations: UNIAP (United Nations Inter-Agency Initiative Against Trafficking), the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, and Forum-Asia (a network of more than thirty-three human rights NGOs). These three organizations have a common objective to promote and protect human rights within the Southeast Asian context. SEARCH works in collaboration with these three regional partners to create independent and sustainable programming in Human Rights aimed at the three target groups: children, ethnic minorities and migrant workers. In addition to its human rights expertise, SEARCH helps its partners develop their management systems and facilitates their ability to work with other civil society organizations at regional and national levels. SEARCH combines capacity building across the organizational continuum with innovative new and established best practices in human rights advocacy, social mobilization and program communication. The project also supports small, grassroots initiatives throughout the region that demonstrate human rights programming in action.
A Catalyst For Engagement On Human Rights
As a regional project, SEARCH acts as a catalyst for trans-boundary, cross-cultural engagement on human rights issues. SEARCH helps facilitate the horizontal discourse between rights workers across Southeast Asia and national level vertical discourse between state governments and their civil institutions. Secondly, through its regional partners and its technical assistance, SEARCH also supports pilot projects and community level cross border cooperation between communities.
SEARCH activities have been informed primarily by the ASEAN human rights agenda. ASEAN has approved the creation of its promised ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), with the first AICHR assembly in Jakarta held at the end of March 2010. Its main purpose is to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of the peoples of ASEAN. ASEAN has also approved the establishment of the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Women and Children (ACWC), which was inaugurated on April 7, 2010 in Hanoi. Concurrently, the region's civil society has made great strides in establishing a network of comparable organizations to parallel these inter-governmental institutions: an ASEAN People's Centre (APC), a Task Force on ASEAN Migrant Workers (TF-AMW), a Human Rights Resource Centre for ASEAN (HRRCA), and a civil society Children's Forum which parallels the ASEAN Children's Forum (ACF). At the same time, the ASEAN Ministers of Labour have signed off on an ASEAN Migrant Workers Declaration and ASEAN itself is in the process of preparing a Regional Human Rights Declaration. SEARCH partners have been active in dialogue with the ASEAN human rights bodies.