New E-Learning Course Launch: Managing Risks, Safety and Security in Human Rights Work
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Organized by
On the margins of the second 2025 Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting, ODIHR will organize a side event to launch its new e-learning course Managing Risks: Safety and Security in Human Rights Work.
While conducting their important work to promote and protect human rights, human rights defenders (HRDs) often face challenging contexts and specific safety and security risks. These can be of a physical, digital, or psychological nature; often interlinked and threatening both the defenders’ work and their well-being. There are many external factors that can hinder the work of HRDs, from shrinking civic space and actors that interfere with their rights to threats, outright abuse and hostility. Operating in a hostile environment can lead to mental health challenges, burnout, distress, and fatigue. Such psychological risks and other challenges put HRDs in danger and often divert precious resources such as time, energy, effort and funds away from their primary mission.
To support HRDs and equip them with essential knowledge and skills to manage different risks, ODIHR developed an e-learning course on risk management. This course explores the risk management process in five stages and provides users with practical examples of managing risks, whilst teaching them on how to tailor the measures specifically to their contexts. Although developed for HRDs, the course has also a wider application for anyone working in challenging environments, facing security and safety risks.
The course will be available on the FreedomLab platform in English and Russian.
Participants
The launch event will entail a panel discussion with HRDs and civil society experts in risk management. It will bring together Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting participants, including representatives of OSCE delegations, OSCE institutions and other international organizations, civil society and HRDs.
Background
OSCE participating States recognized everyone’s right to know and act upon their rights, the right of the individual to seek and receive assistance from others in defending human rights, and the need for protection of human rights defenders (Helsinki 1975, Copenhagen 1990, Budapest 1994). In accordance with these commitments and ODIHR’s mandate to assist OSCE participating States in the implementation of their human dimension commitments, the Office carries out a broad range of activities. These include the monitoring of the situation of HRDs across the OSCE area and the promotion of dialogue between HRDs and state authorities. Training activities for HRDs on human rights monitoring and on their safety and security, including e-learning, are particular areas of focus of ODIHR’s work in support of HRDs. With the FreedomLab platform ODIHR offers a virtual space for HRDs for e-learning and skill-development to build the capacity of HRDs to carry out their vital human rights work safely and securely.