SICHREM is the acronym for South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring. Concerned citizens, who were involved with the civil liberties movement earlier, started SICHREM in 1995, as a response to the growing insensitivity to the rule of law. The founders reconed that to address this need for building a responsible civil society would be through a process of education, sensitization and intervention. Hence education and monitoring have been identified as the main thrust of the program.

SICHREM seeks to empower the disempowered groups of dalits, tribals, women, children and minorities to protect their individual and collective rights for a dignified life, through education, monitoring and mobilising civil society for concerted action.

To Make Human Rights a Household Concept

The vision is to create a society free from fear, where the rights of the last and the least will be respected without any kind of bias. Towards this end, SICHREM hopes to make human rights a household concept by adopting a proactive stance on the restorationof rights and by advocating a rights-based value system. Though rooted in the classical concepts of civil liberties and political liberties, SICHREM believes that the domain of human rights extends to all realms of society and thus embraces social, cultural, economic civil and political rights. Thus we consciously take a pro-poor, gender-sensitive and pro-child stance.

To empower the disempowered groups of Dalits, tribals, women, children and minorities to protect their individual and collective rights for a dignified life through, education, monitoring,and mobilising civil society for concerted action.

We stand for
- Democracy, Responsible Governance and Rule of law
- Justice, Peace and Non Violence
- Cultural Diversity and Secular Ethos
- Gender Justice and Equality for women
- Affirmative Action & Reservation for Dalits, Backward Classes, Minorities
  & Adivasis
- Promoting the Participation Rights of Children
- Absolute Solidarity for Victims of Human Rights Violations

We are Against
- All forms of Discrimination and Untouchability
- War, Violence & Use Of Arms And Weapons As Means Of Settling Conflicts
- Capital Punishment
- Corporal Punishment in School, Institutions and in Households
- Discrimination on the basis of Sexual Orientation
- Domestic Violence and All Forms Of Child Labour
- All Repressive Laws that Violate Human Rights

Towards a Just and Humane Society

Registered under Societies Registration Act, Karnataka vide. S.No.286/95-96.

SICHREM is the programme unit of Manasa Centre for Development and Social Action which is a non-governmental organisation, registered in 1995 as a charitable society under the Societies Registration Act, Karnataka vide. S.No.286/95-96, at Bangalore - India. The name MANASA is the abbreviation of a statement in Kannada, which means, "Towards a Just and Humane Society". MANASA is committed as an organisation to promote and defend Human Rights, affirm gender justice, assert the validity of plural cultures and secular ethos in the society. MANASA programme unit namely South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring (SICHREM) specifically to take up activities for protection and promotion of human rights.

MANASA will be conscious about the politics of language, especially those that disempower women and perpetuate patriarchal society. Also emphasis will be given on the rights of the child, rights of the dalits and tribals and the rights of other minority communities.

Manasa is registered under the Income Tax Act under Sec. 12A and 80G. It is also registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act ( FCRA) for all accounts, financial and legal dealings are in the name of Manasa

STAFF
Executive Director – Mr. Mathews Philip
Deputy Director - Kerala – Mr. Jacob George
Manager Finance and Administration – Ms. Jolly Mathew
Head - Programme Department – Mr. R Manohar
Documentation and Public Relations Officer – Ms. Jyothi Swamy
Deputy Director Human Rights Education – Karnataka – Ms. Margaret Sampath
Coordinator, District Human Rights Centers & Fact Finding - Prakash C K
Coordinator, Communications and Fund Raising – Laltlankimo
State Coordinator - Human Rights Education – Kerala – Sibu Mathew
State Programme Associate – Campaign against Torture – Binny Joseph
State Legal Associate - Campaign against Torture – Adv. Eunice Mercy
Coordinator Training and Education - In the process of recruiting
Documentation Officer – Antony Swami
Executive Secretary – Chithra M
Office Assistant – Rose Mary
Transport In-charge – Gireesan

Others
Regular Volunteer – Annet D’souza
Hon. Coordinator Diploma in Human Rights Studies – Ravindra Walters

Legal Advisors
Chief Legal Advisor - Professor Adv. Ravivarma Kumar
Legal Advisor – Adv. Manohar Hosea
Legal Advisor – Adv. Siji Malayil
Volunteering Lawyers – Adv. Vishwesh Shekar

SICHREM - National Campaign Against Torture Office
No 35 Hennur Road , Anjanappa Complex,
Hennur Road, Lingarajapuram,
Bangalore 560 008 , India
Phone: +91 80 2580 6866

Telefax: +91 80 2547 3922,   +91 80 2549 2856
email : contact@sichrem.org, msichrem@gmail.com