In Warszawa, 48 persons from the former Soviet Union take part in the first session of the International Advanced Course in Human Rights. The course will last until January 2003. (11 March 2002)

The biggest Helsinki Foundation´s educational venture has started.

The first International Advanced Course in Human Rights, organised by the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, is in process. It is the largest-scale venture in the HFHR´s educational activity, with many participants from the former Soviet Union.

48 persons from various countries of the former Soviet Union, now members of the Commonwealth of Independant States, attends.

The course will consist of five sessions. The first one will end on 23 March. The second session will also take place in Warsaw, on 11-25 May. In July the participants will meet in Moscow, where lectures and workshops on technics of effective public actions in defence of human rights will be held. In October the students will go to France, Holland and Switzerland to get acquainted with the activity of some international organisations and institutions. The course will end on 26 January 2003. It will be but an element of a many years´ project “Organising and Empowering the Human Rights Movement for Civil Society in CIS Countries”

The ´´Organising and Empowering the Human Rights Movement for the Civil Society in the SIC” project is a result of the HFHR´s over 10 years´ international experience in human rights education. Thanks to that experience the HFHR was able to assess the SIC countries needs in the field of human rights and prepare a project based on this assessment. The main goal of the project is to assist in the building of an effective movement that will help develop the culture of civil liberties in such countries of the CIS as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.

Most of the carefully selected participants of the course have already taken part in some other courses and seminars organised by the HFHR. Thanks to the course which is now in process they will acquire more knowledge and skills concerning human rights and the methods of their defending. The course will consists of five sessions of various character:

1. 9-23 March 2002 – theoretical session
2. 11-25 May 2002 – theoretical session
3. 8-26 July 2002 – workshops
4. 12-26 October – educational trip to France, Holland and Switzerland
5. 12-26 January 2003 – workshops

The working knowledge of the course is Russian. It is the language in which HFHR´s trainers conduct their lectures and workshops. Some other lectures are guided in Polish, which means that they are interpreted into Russian simultaneously.