Non-governmental organisations play an essential role in the development of a culture of human rights, particularly at the national and local level.

Governments often fail to live up to expectations when it comes to the integration of human rights education into the curriculum, and NGOs, as highly
committed groups with specialist expertise, can act as watchdogs as well as playing a more proactive role – for example, by contributing to the development of the human rights legislation. 

Global human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International, have worldwide educational programmes and work systematically on advocating for human rights education. The People’s Movement for Human Rights Education (PDHRE-International) has worked to facilitate Human Rights learning and training at the community level in more than 60 countries, and has produced a range of resources to support learning and dialogue for socio-economic  transformation.

Some organisations, such as Human Rights Education Associates (HREA), Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe (DARE) and many youth organisations, have human rights education as a focus: they support human rights learning and the training of activists and professionals, develop
educational materials and seek to raise the profile of education for democratic citizenship and human rights.

Other organisations concentrate on educating about children’s rights. For some, such as Save the Children or Terre des hommes, this is an important part of their worldwide mission; others, such as the Children’s Rights Information Network, serve hundreds of child-related NGOs by collecting and disseminating
information. At the local and national level, many non-governmental organisations work to organise human rights education programmes and projects involving children and young people. 

The Human Rights Education Youth Network is an international youth organisation that gathers individuals and organisations committed to human rights education for and with young people. Clearly there are many kinds of human rights education and a wide spectrum of institutions and individuals seeking to promote rights learning. These diverse efforts have a great deal in common: all are grounded in the international human rights framework and seek to empower people to realise human rights in their daily lives in concrete and practical ways.