The Rights Reporter Foundation (RRF) is a non-profit organisation founded by Hungarian activists to advocate for the human rights of vulnerable populations. We use the power of video for community mobilisation and advocacy campaigning. Our vision is of a society where policies affecting vulnerable communities are evidence-informed and respect human rights, as well as developed and implemented with the meaningful involvement of these communities. The main focus of our work is on people who use drugs, sex workers and people who live with HIV, but we are glad to work with other stigmatised communities, such as LMBTQ people, ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees and homeless people. Our mission is to educate the public about the role of evidence in policy formulation, to provide a voice for vulnerable communities, and to improve the advocacy efforts of NGOs by providing technical assistance and training. The RRF team is based in Budapest, and most of our activities focus on Europe, but we have cooperated with a number of NGOs beyond Europe, from New Zealand to Canada, from Mexico to Indonesia.
Rights Reporter Foundation
Hungary, 1032 Budapest, San Marco Street 70.
rightsreporter@rightsreporter.net
Our Team
Péter Sárosi
Executive Director of the Rights Reporter Foundation.
He is a human rights activist and drug policy expert, the founder and editor of the Drugreporter website since 2004, the author of countless articles, co-author of books and director of films about harm reduction and drug policy reform. He was the Director of the Drug Policy Program at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union between 2004 and 2015. He is experienced in working at international drug policy forums such as the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. He was twice elected to the Core Group of the EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs. He is advisory board member of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA) and the Steering Committee member of the Correlation European Harm Reduction Network. He was representing the Hungarian Harm Reduction Network at the government’s drug advisory body in Hungary between 2007 and 2015. As a member of the Drugreporter video advocacy team, he has produced videos about drug policy issues in a number of countries. These videos are now part of a unique online drug policy video library.
István Gábor Takács
Video Manager of the Rights Reporter Foundation.
István Gábor Takács is a human rights activist, videographer and trainer. He ran the Video Advocacy Program of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union between 2007-2015. He worked as a needle exchange program counselor for 5 years. He is author of several articles on harm reduction and cameraman, editor, director and co-director of more than 700 online videos, among them longer documentaries, such as ”A Day in the Life: The World of Humans Who Use Drugs” (2016), “Without Rights” (2009), “Without a Chance” (2014), “Room in the 8th District” (2014) and “The Invisible” (2011). Since 2016 he works at the Rights Reporter Foundation, where besides producing films, he is training activists in video advocacy.
Zselyke Tófalvi
Head of Administration of the Rights Reporter Foundation.
Zselyke Tófalvi after graduating from Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, has worked for the President’s Office of the Hungarian minority party in Romania, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania. Afterwards, she received her Master’s degree in Public Policy from Corvinus University of Budapest. She has worked for Center for European Neighborhood Studies at Central European University, Budapest since its establishment in 2005. Her research topics focus on the study of ethnic minorities in East Central Europe and the intricacies generated by the transformations of the concept of citizenship in the context of multicultural societies. Previously, she had worked for the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU). She joined RRF in 2020 as head of administration.
Annual Reports
Awards
2017 – International Rolleston Award for achievements in international harm reduction advocacy.
2015 – Kreatív Magazine annual online award, best documentary award for „Room in District 8”
2013 – Hégető Honorka special award for our video advocacy activities.
2012 – Kreatív Magazine annual online award – Best series award for “Count the Costs video series.”
Major Donors
The Rights Reporter Foundation currently has two major donors, the Open Society Foundations and the European Commission.
What Others Say About Us
“Drugreporter videos get the voice out that otherwise would not be heard. It also helps our movement itself to define our own messages.”
Rick Lines, Director, Harm Reduction International
I think what Drugreporter is doing with these video productions is spectacular. Your ability to produce these videos in such a short time, at such a high level, is absolutely fantastic. It’s an educational vehicle, it’s inspirational for other people that this level of professionalism can be brought to this, and also, because Drugreporter is at the cutting edge of all the discussions and debates in drug policy, it provides a fantastic opportunity. I only wish we could imitate what you are doing in the United States
Ethan Nadelmann, Director, Drug Policy Alliance, USA
Politicians know that these tools are exposing them to criticism and scrutiny, and they do watch these videos. So they can have a really big impact.
Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst at Transform Drug Policy Foundation
The drugreporter films, from our point of view, open a new dimension in advocacy for drug policy reform.
Eberhard Schatz, Director, Correlation Network, The Netherlands
We need to get this message out, we need to reach more people, because we are not reaching enough people now. Those agencies that are putting out messages about the war against drugs, are effective in getting their messages out, so the more people that we can reach through these types of videos, the better
Joseph Amon, Director, Health and Human Rights Division, Human Rights Watch, USA
I also forward some of the movies to Ministry of Health colleagues as part of my responsibility for monitoring developments in international drugs policy… I find your summaries/ documentaries of international conferences helpful as NZ officials are not attending many international gatherings currently due to the economic climate.
Bruce Atmore, Senior Policy Analyst, Ministry of Health, New Zealand
The films that you make are dynamic, they are not boring, they make people want to watch them.
Anya Sarang, Director, Andrey Rylkov Foundation, Russia
No-one does video advocacy like the Drugreporter. I don’t think that I have ever seen video advocacy done in this way, not in any form of activism I was involved in. We are all mutually supporting each other and pushing our messages and agenda forward. I think it’s an incredibly collaborative effort, and you guys listen to what people say, but you also say this is where we should be going. I think you do incredible work.
Allan Clear, Director, Harm Reduction Coalition, USA
You guys are doing a fabulous job. The way you do it is not in a two-hundred-page report, but in a very simple, clean-cut video that is putting out messages in a very particular area, which helps empower young people and break stigma and discrimination.
Aram Barra, Director Espolea, Mexico, and Youth RISE
