The Council of Europe Project “Strengthening the Human Rights Protection of Internally Displaced Persons in Ukraine”, implemented under the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2015-2017, launched a series of trainings for the representatives of newly created human rights organisations and NGOs, working in the field of protection IDPs rights. Support to civil society organization is a cross-cutting priority of the project, and the aim of this training series is to support the capacity of small or newly created civil society organizations working in the regions with IDPs in local communities. Given that many new organizations and volunteer initiatives were set up in 2014 and since, in order to provide assistance and representation to IDPs, the trainings focused on expanding skills of NGO leaders in particular to apply the human-rights based approach and CoE standards in their advocacy work with IDPs. The first four trainings seek to cover approximately 100 representatives.

The first two trainings were carried out in Dnipro, Dniprpetrovsk region on 20-21 August and in Glibovka, Kyiv region on 26-27 August, bringing together 25 representatives each time. The trainings were successfully facilitated by experienced human rights advocates, Tetyana Durnyeva and Svitlava Tkachenko.  

The participants evaluated the trainings very positively, in particular pointing to the impact of the trainings on the future advocacy activities of the organisations they represent and on the utility of the baseline analysis “Enhancing the National Legal Framework in Ukraine for Protecting the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons”. The following two training will be held in Sviatohirsk, Donetsk region on 15-16 September 2016 and in Severodonetsk, Luhansk region on 17-18 September 2016.

You may find the online application form and more information regarding the upcoming trainings in Donetsk and Luhansk region here link.