The Project HELP (Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals) for Ukraine, including during wartime" organised a training of trainers, future tutors of HELP courses at the national level. The event was held online on 30 and 31 August 2023 and gathered 30 participants from Ukraine. In particular, the training was attended by lawyers, prosecutors and judges, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, the Training Centre for Prosecutors of Ukraine, the National School of Judges of Ukraine, the Higher School of Public Administration and the Coordination Centre for Legal Aid Provision.
The event was opened by Eva Pastrana, Head of the Justice and Human Rights Training Division, Directorate General for Human Rights and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe, and Olga Kostenko, International Project Manager of the Project “HELP (Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals) for Ukraine, including during wartime". The training was conducted by representatives of the HELP Secretariat together with Alla Fedorova, a certified HELP tutor and Associate Professor of the Department of Comparative and European Law at the Institute of International Relations of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
As a result of the training, participants gained an understanding of the HELP Programme and its mission, the role of HELP tutors in delivering HELP courses, and learned how to adapt HELP courses to the national legal system and the needs of the target audience. Participants also learned how to deliver HELP courses online, how to use the HELP e-learning platform and its human rights courses, how to moderate HELP courses and/or use HELP courses as a supplement to their training programmes.
Following the training session, participants (who are not yet certified HELP trainers) were asked to complete a final task designed to assess their skills in applying the HELP methodology and using the HELP e-learning platform. Successful completion of this final assignment is a prerequisite for obtaining a HELP tutor’s certificate.
The HELP programme provides high quality professional and university training in the field of human rights through online courses on the ECHR, judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, the revised European Social Charter and other key Council of Europe instruments (conventions and soft law), and since 2015, European Union law and judgments of the EU Court of Justice.
HELP provides free online courses that can be easily accessed by registering on the website. The courses are developed on the basis of the Council of Europe's expertise in its areas of work. The courses are interactive and include case scenarios, tests and other exercises. The full catalogue of courses is available at https://www.coe.int/en/web/help/courses.
The audience of HELP courses in Ukraine is constantly growing, with the number of users of the HELP Platform increasing from 6,472 in December 2022 to 9,419 in September 2023, which ranked Ukraine 4th according to the number of users. 33 courses on the HELP Platform are available in Ukrainian. The most popular courses in Ukrainian are "Introduction to the ECHR and the ECtHR", "Admissibility criteria", "Asylum and human rights", "Internal displacement", "International cooperation in criminal matters", "Labour rights and human rights".
