This project, proposed jointly by two international organisations - Amnesty International and Human Rights Education Youth Network -, addresses the issues of the Shrinking Space for Human Rights Organisations (Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, 2017) - different measures undertaken by national governments in several member states of the Council of Europe that aim to limit freedom of expression, as well as the freedom of assembly and association of human rights organisations. Numerous organisations have reported that the space for civil society has become increasingly restricted and under pressure in Europe. According to major international human rights organisations, throughout the last decade there has been a notable decline in democracy scores and human rights indexes in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus (Freedom House - Freedom in the World 2019, OHCHR, Human Rights Watch Report 2019, Freedom House – “Nations in Transit 2019,” CIVICUS Monitor - Tracking Civil Space). These tendencies alongside a trend of increasing extremist movements have been identified as a threat to liberal democracy, and in fact, called a “democratic backsliding” (Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) Populism: a Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press). The project aims on one hand to use rights-based youth work as a solution against the "shrinking space" phenomenon, and on the other hand, to build resilience capacity of the organisations to maintain and enhance their youth work and human rights education praxis in the restrictive environments. The pedagogic basis of the activities will aim to increase the quality of youth work in a way that supports various methods of meaningful youth participation in the democratic life through exchange of practices. This project will enhance the participation of young people in democratic and civic life, and broaden and deepen political, civic and social participation on various levels. This project aims to build the capacity of Amnesty International sections and Human Rights Education Youth Network members by creating a know-how through a long-term exchange of youth work and human rights education practices, while taking into account the specific problematics of each partner organisation and, thus, improve the quality of youth work praxis and calibrate it to address the shrinking space phenomenon. To reach this goal, the following objectives were elaborated: O1 - To improve programmes and practices of human rights education with young people in Amnesty International Sections and HREYN members by creating a youth work know-how and training youth workers on supporting and expansion of the civil society space maintaining high-quality praxis; O2 - To engage partners in a meaningful exchange of non-formal education, human rights and youth work practice between the partner organisations, which includes learning, feedback, identifying challenges and solutions, integrating results into the youth work curricula; O3 - To review existing youth work tools provided by HREYN and Amnesty International, ensure the good use of project outputs into youth-oriented human rights education work programmes - directly affecting young activists and peer-learners, and disseminate the project results into the network and other sections. To reach these objectives, this project proposal foresees a set of transnational activities, local activities and supporting training activities for youth workers and blended mobility for young people. The action plan is constructed in a way that it enables participants to receive fundamental competencies in human rights education within youth work, receive tools to pedagogically address the issues "shrinking space," and engage young people. It also enables the participants to exchange practices and integrate their experiences and know-how into the adjusted youth work curricula within the partner organisations. By the end of the project, the intellectual output - publication about the youth work against shrinking space - compilation of practices will be created and disseminated in various platforms where Amnesty International and Human Rights Education Youth Network participates.
The project aimed to use rights-based youth work as a solution against the "shrinking space" phenomenon, and to build resilience capacity of the organisations to maintain and enhance youth work and HRE praxis in restrictive environments. The pedagogic basis of activities aimed to increase the quality of youth work for meaningful participation of young people through training and exchange of practices, while taking into account the evolving problematics faced by each partner organization. To reach these goals, the following objectives were set: O1 - improve programmes and practices of HRE in Amnesty International and HREYN by creating a youth work know-how and training youth workers on supporting and expanding civil society space, maintaining high-quality praxis; O2 - engage partners in a meaningful exchange of non-formal education, human rights and youth work practice, which includes learning, feedback, identifying challenges and solutions, integrating results into youth work curricula; O3 - review existing youth work tools provided by HREYN and Amnesty International, ensure the good use of project outputs into youth-oriented HRE programmes and disseminate the project results into the network and other sections.
This project, proposed jointly by two international organisations - Amnesty International and Human Rights Education Youth Network -, addressed the issues of “Shrinking Spaces” such as measures by national governments and authorities limiting freedom of expression, assembly and association, specifically impacting youth civil society in Europe. The proposal was based on a participatory needs assessment among sections of Amnesty International led by the Italian Section and the European and Central Asia Unit at the International Secretariat in London. The HRE Unit of Italian Section selected Amnesty Sections from European countries where shrinking spaces conditions were particularly critical, based on data collected and CIVICUS ranking in 2018-2019 (Hungary, Poland, Moldova). The cooperation with HREYN – Human Rights Education Youth Network and its member organization XELI from Georgia was defined through a similar process (the network’s member organizations identified the need to be better equipped at responding to “Shrinking Spaces” in their respective contexts) in the framework of a structured partnership between Amnesty International Itay and HREYN established in 2018 (JHREP – Joint Human Rights Education Youth Network).