Mobile Training Center

The number of human rights defenders who asks for education in digital, personal and physical security is increasing. To meet their needs, the Mobile Training Center provides qualified security education and assistance.

Many human rights defenders live and work in dangerous situations. Whether it is hackers in their email accounts, or threats, harassment and persecution, or burglars in their offices, or interrogation by the security services, many front line activists face a qualified and powerful opposition in their daily work.

Working closely with Civil Rights Defenders’ regional departments, our Training Center organises training events, conducts research and development, and performs security audits to strengthen the ability of human rights defenders to avoid or withstand the threats they’re faced with. Our trainers are often people who speak the same language and share the same culture as the participants.

We also work with psychosocial resilience trainings. When assessing the risks faced by human rights defenders in repressive countries, the fear and stress inherent to the environment is always one of the main dangers we identify. It’s costly for organisations in terms of staff turnover and loss of capacity, and also extremely draining on a personal level, leading to health issues, such as for example burnout. During the trainings, the participants learn how to deal with stress, pressure from authorities, threatening situations but also other stressful situations such as organisational problems and logistics. Civil Rights Defenders help develop methods to prevent burnout and trauma of the activists.