Holistic Security and Protection: CEE Programme

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4 to 11 May 2024

Combining physical, psychosocial and digital elements of protection and care with security planning and management on both individual and collective level

 

Activists, human rights defenders, and political organisers across Central and Eastern Europe work and operate in a hostile climate. Conservatism, misogyny, economic scarcity and rise of the far right are only a few of the threats they face. This impacts our own and collective wellbeing, as well as our effectiveness, and, especially in the long run, it can deter and hinder efforts towards greater social, ecological and economic justice.

Holistic security training aims to:

  • reframe security as an internal and integral part of our work,
  • broaden the meaning of personal and collective sense of safety on emotional, physical or cyber level,
  • identify and understand various risks and threats we and our groups face,
  • develop systems of community care and self-care within our contexts, collectives and movements to tackle different forms of repression and violence.

What will happen?

  • we will strengthen the ability to self-reflect and take measurements to increase our sense of control and safety
  • we will explore group processes, power dynamics and our ability to collaborate, learn and share
  • we will create space to think critically about risks we face, prepare and develop strategies to improve the security of activists and their communities
  • we will dive into cyberspaces and safe digital organising
  • we will talk about the sustainability of our actions in the context of violence, threats and hostility
  • We will build on experiences and best practices in the room
  • we will reflect on the specifics of organising in Central and Eastern Europe

This training is part of the Ulex Central and Eastern Europe Programme pilot year. It is designed and delivered by a training team embedded in CEE social movements.

 

Creating Space: Security and Radical Well-being 

This dimension will support participants in reclaiming 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, well-being as political tools in political struggles, and 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.


How to apply?

Everyone active in social movements in the region of Central and Eastern Europe is welcome.

Apply here by 8th of April 2024.

The training´s working language is in English, but please let us know in the form if this is something you could use support with. The training team speaks other languages too and together we can think about solutions.

Some travel bursaries will be available.
There is no charge for the training, so economic difficulties should not prevent you from attending!

This training will take place in Kunbábony, Hungary

This venue is accessible for people with limited mobility.

Compartir
Suggested Contribution
€300/€550/€1100

(See details of our approach to radical economics here)

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Equipo

Equipo

Sergio

Germany

Location:

Germany

Sergio (all pronouns) was born in Romania and migrated to Germany in the early 2010s. In the past, he was a social worker with homeless people and a social consultant for Eastern European migrants for various organisations. Trained as a filmmaker, he spent two years making a documentary about the ‘civic reawakening’ in Romania and the waves of protest it brought with it. In connection to this, Sergio is currently co-steering the development of an online open-source participative knowledge production platform on activism in Romania. Over the past nine years, Sergiu has offered his skills to various journalists, grassroots collectives and campaigns, mostly working within the labour rights, climate justice, international solidarity and anti-authoritarian movements in Germany and Romania. Nonetheless, his biggest focus since 2020 has been his work as an organiser with the anarcho-syndicalist Free Workers Union, where he focuses mostly on organising Romanian migrant workers on construction sites, in factories and in the agricultural field.

Linzy Na Nakorn

Location:

Jeroen

Location:

Jeroen (he/him pronouns) has been involved in grassroots social movements for more than two decades now, starting back when he was fifteen. Throughout the years the fights for “climate justice” and “migrant justice” have been consistently on top of the list of struggles that make his heart beat faster. A key transformative moment for Jeroen was reading Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire’s revolutionary pedagogy gave him a language to support the creation of emancipatory learning environments, rooted in a desire for collective liberation. Jeroen has also been exploring in depth Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and Joanna Macy’s The Work That Reconnects among other methodologies to build his trainer’s toolkit. Inspired by the liberatory possibilities of these traditions, he started an organization with a friend, LABO vzw, based in Belgium, where he has worked as a trainer and campaigner between 2013 and 2023.

Ella

Location:

Alex Swain

Location:

Nina Scott

Location:

Próximos cursos

Nuestro nombre

Ulex: del latín, (tojo en castellano, argelaga en catalán) nombre.

1. Arbusto espinoso de hoja perenne y floración, con gran capacidad de regeneración y resistencia. Sus púas se abren al entrar en contacto con el fuego y vuelve a brotar de los tocones carbonizados. Planta sucesional que crece bien en condiciones difíciles. Mejora la fertilidad del suelo mediante la fijación de nitrógeno, preparando el terreno para una renovada biodiversidad.

2. Una opción tradicional para encender fuegos. Arde con intensidad y brillo.

3. Un proyecto en red que aporta nutrición y fertilidad a los movimientos sociales europeos a través de la formación