Update: On Thursday the ISHR team said goodbye to another amazing group of human rights defenders from around the world who were in Geneva to participate in our intensive advocacy and training programme.

On Thursday the ISHR team said goodbye to another amazing group of human rights defenders from around the world who were in Geneva to participate in our intensive advocacy and training programme.

The human rights work of these 19 inspiring defenders is incredibly important and we’re proud to have enhanced and expanded their human rights toolkit. 

The reality though is that our Human Rights Defenders Advocacy and Training Programme is not cheap to run.

It costs approximately $5,000 to bring a defender here to Geneva to provide the full suite of opportunities the two week programme offers.

But as LGBTI rights defender Aych McArdle describes in one of the videos below, it can be a life changing experience – one that lays the foundations for a lifetime of human rights impact.

In addition to the quality training, the opportunities presented for high-level advocacy are profound.

With the UN Human Rights Council in full swing, this programme enabled:

• Corporate accountability activist Alexandra Montgomery to provide first hand testimony to state representatives and experts about the violence faced by land rights defenders in Brazil,
• Jacobus Witbooi from Namibia to contribute to the historic push for the creation of a UN independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity issues,
• Tehmina Zafar to sound the alarm in the UN Human Rights Council about proposed laws which could dramatically restrict the operation and independence of NGOs in Pakistan; and
• Karen Mejia to inform a UN expert body about the need to defend women’s rights activists and decriminalise abortion in Honduras.

In the face of intensifying global human rights challenges, we want as many defenders as possible to benefit from our training programme and be granted access to the UN’s peak human rights body and decision makers from around the world.

Can you help us boost the reach by making a donation now to our Human Rights Defenders Appeal?

We received over 150 applications from defenders around the world to participate in this session, but could only take 19. The interactive online training and strategy platform we are developing will help take the training to defenders everywhere.

It will also reach the human rights defenders who face travel bans or have safety concerns regarding reprisals in their home countries if they where to travel to Geneva.

With your support we can continue to equip the next generation of human rights defenders with the skills and networks needed to deliver lasting human rights change.

Thank you!

Phil Lynch
Director

Some of the defenders took a minute out of their schedules to share a few words about the training and advocacy opportunities. Check out the short videos here: