Combining physical, psychosocial and digital elements of protection and care with security planning and management into an integrated approach
Activists, human rights defenders, and political organisers often get threatened by both State and non-State actors. This impacts our wellbeing and that of those around us, as well as our effectiveness, and, especially on the long run, it can deter and hinder efforts towards greater social justice and ecological integrity. This training aims to reframe security into community-care and self-care within our contexts, collectives and movements to face different forms of repression and violence.
This training combines physical, psychosocial and digital elements of security and care with security planning and management into an integrated approach. We will build on experiences and best-practices in the room and create a space to think critically and act to improve the security of activists, their communities, and beloved ones with the objective of “well-being in action”.
Combining work developed in the Holistic Security Manual with the resilience trainings developed by the Ulex team over the last decade, this week long immersive training shares an integrated and systematic approach to digital, physical, and psycho-social security for individuals, groups and organisations.
Creating Space: Security and Radical Well-being
This dimension will support participants to reclaim security as a subjective and personal or community concept. We will explore external risks and threats for activists in their context (e.g. with regards to law, violence, technology, and impact through gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, etc.). Looking at psychological responses to threats, we will build an understanding of the impact of stress and trauma on well-being, care and security. We will explore self-care, collective-care and well-being as political tools in political struggles, along with the importance of mobilising inner resources and solidarity while improving security in groups and organisations.
Explore, Strategize and Planning: Analysis and Planning for Security
This aspect of the training will enable participants to analyse and unpack threats, which are often multilayered and thus tend to overwhelm. We will analyse and prioritize risks, including situational monitoring, and explore ways to strategise for readiness, prevention, responses and resumption. Actor mapping help to identify allies and adversaries to consider for networking, advocacy and political action, and a reflection of different security strategies opens space for strategic planning. We will dive into realistic scenarios, prevention and emergency planning, and focus on the needs and topics of the group.
Act: Security and care in Action
This can range from action training or crisis response simulation, to investing in securing public and internal communication to actively build care and awareness structures within the movements, activist groups or organizations themselves. In our training, we offer space to acquire basic digital care skills as well as the option for peer coaching on specific scenarios or how to deal with conflicts within activist groups.