Kyiv to get a Human Rights House

Plans, initiated by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, are underway to create a Human Rights House in Kyiv. At present money is being raised and an appropriate building sought.

The plan is that the Human Rights House will be a centre for cooperation between human rights organizations and the public, authorities, international community; a place for generating new ideas and joint projects on defending human rights.

$650 thousand are needed to achieve this aim.  At present the partners have received $250 thousand from the Government of Norway and Charles Stuart Mott Fund.

The Human Rights House Network includes 70 organizations from 15 countries in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Northern Caucuses; Western Ukraine, Eastern Africa and the Horn of Africa. It was created in 1994.

A Human Rights House aims to:

-  enhance cooperation between human rights workers by uniting various organizations under one roof, with each of them retaining their own independence and sphere of activities, while receiving support from others;

-  save on expenses by human rights organizations by allowing them to share use of resources for their work – conference halls, public reception offices, libraries etc;

-  serve as a centre for gathering information about the human rights situation in the country; a source for circulating information at national and international levels.

Each Human Rights House constitutes shared premises in which human rights workers with different profiles work together, following the human rights situation in the country and present a joint platform for advocating solutions to human rights issues both within the country and at international level.