Themed "Human rights and local democracy," the training session was developed and conducted by Chernihiv Hub – MART civil society organisation – with the support of UNDP's Democracy, Human Rights and Civil Society Development Programme in Ukraine.

 

Up to 20 representatives of subnational civil society hubs were equipped with training to increase their expertise at the local level in order to analyse and assess local problems and challenges from a human rights perspective and to use the human rights and local democracy tools in their civic activity.

 

The main trainers at the workshop were a powerful tandem of Ukrainian activist Serhii Burov from MART CSO, Belarusian activist Andrei Paluda from Viasna human rights centre, and Slovak expert Zuzana Fialová from Partners for Democratic Change.

 

On the first day of the training, participants learned about the term human rights and shared their thoughts on understanding this difficult concept. A special attention was accorded to the topic of democracy and democratic relations at the local level. In order to demonstrate participants how complex and important is communication between local government, CSOs, ordinary citizens, and the media, trainers conducted the interactive exercise on cooperation.

 

During the second day, participants continued their familiarization with theoretical and practical material, which included a significant amount of topics about philosophy, evolution, and basic concepts of human rights, as well as values, principles, and legal norms. The most heated discussion among participants arose about the spectrum of human rights that the state cannot restrict under any circumstances. As a practical exercise, participants were asked to draw the landscape of a city of human rights.

 

A great lineup of speakers featured Bohdan Kryklyvenko, Head of the Ombudsperson's Office, Svitlana Kolyshko, Team Lead of UNDP's Strengthening Capacities of the Office of the Ombudsperson Project, Pavlo Parkhomenko, judge of Bakhmach District Court in Chernihiv oblast, and Uladzimir Schcherbau, representative of the Monitoring Human Rights Mission in Ukraine.

 

During the third day, trainers explained how to use international standards and mechanisms of human rights protection in local community activities and helped to understand typical problems. Trainees had the opportunity not only to discuss a number of important issues such as the criteria for restriction of rights and freedoms, but also analysed real cases of the European Court of Human Rights.

 

On the fourth day, participants reviewed in detail the practical aspects of effective use of the procedures of local democracy in protecting the public interest. A special task for trainees was to develop a mini-plan for advocacy campaign or procedure for cooperation with local authorities or community to address the specific problems of a city or oblast, i.e. reducing tariffs for carriers, increasing the role of local communities in decision-making, etc.

 

Slovak expert Zuzana Fialová elaborated on the issues of local community, human rights, and civil society. She provided an interesting example of how a small town's community took active steps to protect the public interest and human rights and helped not only overcome local bureaucratic arbitrariness, but also change the law at the European Union level.

 

This initiative is supported by the Democratization, Human Rights and Civil Society Development Programme in Ukraine, implemented by UNDP and funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.