HUMAN RIGHTS IN BELARUS

Given the school’s focus on maximum involvement of Ukrainian, Belarusian and international specialists with practical experience in building civil society, the following teachers served as teachers: Volodymyr Vaisman – international expert of the Helsinki Movement (Denmark), Stasis Kaushinis – head of the Citizens’ Protection Assistance Fund (Lithuania), Andriy Yurov – president of the International Youth Human Rights Movement, Pavlyuk Bykovsky – columnist for the newspaper “Belarusians and the Market”, Volodymyr Yavorsky – executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union,

Oleksiy Tarasov – head of the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, etc.

The event aroused great interest among the participants, as it consisted of both theoretical classes and a practical part, during which it was possible to get acquainted with the international experience of building democracy and respecting human rights in a fairly wide range. The experts conducted quite original practical classes, which allowed young human rights defenders to look at various problems of socio-political life from different sides and draw certain conclusions about the effectiveness of certain methods of activity.

The school participants were particularly interested in classes dedicated to the connection between democracy, human rights and economic processes in the country. The topic of the possibility of dialogue between NGOs and the authorities of Belarus at various levels caused a lot of discussion. A good addition to the school program was a discussion in the open space format. There was an exchange of views and a lively discussion of common problems.

This event is the next stage of the joint activities of the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, which involves promoting the development of civil society in the Republic of Belarus and developing cooperation between the third sector of this country and colleagues from Ukraine.