Dropbox Foundation announces new Australian partner

With offices in Sydney and Melbourne, Human Rights Law Centre uses legal action, policy, and advocacy work to fight inequality and injustice for underserved communities in Australia. The organisation is one of the first human rights advocacy groups in the region and also the first Foundation partner located in the Asia-Pacific/Japan region. We’re excited to continue growing the Foundation’s impact in 2020 by broadening its geographic scope.

Human Rights Law Centre is joining the Dropbox Foundation’s six existing partners—Allies Against Slavery, GOAL, Larkin Street Youth Services, Physicians for Human Rights, War Child UK, and WITNESS—all of which we are renewing for another year. As the Foundation enters its third year, we’re continuing to focus on building trust and active partnerships through unrestricted funding and skills-based volunteering.

“We’re thrilled about this new partnership because it comes at an important time for us since we just launched a new 10-year strategic plan,” says Hugh de Kretser, executive director of Human Rights Law Centre. “The financial support and the skills that Dropbox employees have will all help contribute to that plan and our long-term view of the change we need to make to better protect human rights in Australia.”

Human Rights Law Centre works together with key partners, including law firms, academic experts, and international and domestic human rights organisations, to address inequality and injustice in many human rights areas. Their work includes (but is not limited to) promoting the human rights of people seeking asylum and refugees, ensuring prisons, youth justice centres, and police cells comply with human rights standards, and protecting women’s reproductive health rights. Over the last ten years, the nonprofit has established constitutional protection of the right to vote, prevented the deportation of over 550 refugees and people seeking asylum to detention on Manus Island and Nauru, and secured legal reforms that ensure safe access to reproductive healthcare around Australia.

The Foundation, started by Dropbox founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, is an independent entity overseen by a board that includes Dropbox executives, Bart Volkmer (Chief Legal Officer), Lin-Hua Wu (Chief Communications Officer), and Amber Cottle (VP of Global Public Policy, Government Affairs & Social Impact), as well as four independent directors from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

Read about the Foundation’s second year here and for more info on the Foundation partners, visit dropbox.foundation.