In the nearest future, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFHR) will be strongly involved in human rights education in Georgia. (28 May 2002)



In Tabakhmela near Tbilisi, they have just completed the first session of the three-part-project on human rights monitoring and reporting. 

The project, addressed to both NGO members and representatives of state structures, is being carried out under the aegis of the OSCE/ODIHR and the European Commission. The second session of the project will take place on the turn of June and July, and the final one will be conducted at the beginning of October. On 24 June-2 July the HFHR’s educators will guide a seminar for NGO members on how to monitor observance of the right to fair trial.

The opening ceremony of the seminar in Tabakhmela took place on 10 May. Representatives of the OSCE Mission to Georgia, the European Commission and the Italian government attended it.

“This training speaks of the excellent institutional and international co-operation in the field of human rights. It is initiated by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), it is facilitated by the OSCE Mission to Georgia, financed jointly by the European Union and the Italian government, and it will be carried out by experts from the Polish Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights”, said Ambassador Jean-Michel Lacombe, Head of the OSCE Mission to Georgia at the opening of the seminar.

“This type of project forms an integral part of activities of the European Commission’s work on the grassroots level with Non-Governmental Organizations is as important for us as the work with state structures”, emphasized Mr. Jacques Vantomme, Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Commission in Georgia.

The fact that the series of the three seminars in Tabakhmela is addressed to both NGO members and state functionaries distinguishes the project from many other trainings on human rights monitoring, which are as a rule meant for NGO representatives only.

The first session of the training lasted five days. Its participants arrived in Tabakhmela from 8 different cities and towns of Georgia. At the beginning of the seminar the Helsinki Foundation’s trainers gave them some closer ideas of human rights philosophy and history as well as the international human rights law. Then they taught the participants how to use various types and techniques of monitoring and reporting on human rights situation.

The second session of the training will take place on the turn of June and July and the third one will be conducted at the beginning of October. During these workshops the participants will among other things get more familiar with the ideas on how to build contacts with media in order to spread the results of the work on human rights monitoring.     

On 24 June-2 July in Borjomi the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights will conduct another seminar on human rights monitoring. It will concern the right to fair trial. The seminar is meant for 25 NGO representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The candidates will be selected out of the NGO members who will send out their applications not later than on 5 June.