Draft:Libereco - Partnership for Human Rights e.V.

Libereco - Partnership for Human Rights is a German-Swiss non-governmental organisation that campaigns for the protection of human rights in Belarus and Ukraine. . Founded in 2009, the organization is among the most active in Western Europe, particularly in relation to Belarus. It supports democratic civil society in the two countries, for exiled civilians as well as victims of war and violence. This support is offered through multifunctional channels, including through psychosocial and humanitarian aid. Libereco is also active in transcultural human rights education.

The name of the organisation is derived from the Esperanto word for "freedom". It is recognised as a non-profit organization in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Aims
Libereco provides information on human rights violations, supports victims of war and violence, is involved in transcultural human rights education and provides humanitarian aid including psychosocial support.

According to its own statutes, the organisation is committed to "the defence of human rights, in particular political and civil liberties". Libereco refers to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).

Sponsorship campaign #WeStandBYyou for political prisoners in Belarus
The #WeStandBYyou campaign was launched in July 2020 - one month before the presidential elections in Belarus on 9 August 2020. "As part of the campaign, members of European parliaments have agreed to sponsor political prisoners in Belarus and to campaign for their release".

A total of 407 European politicians from 23 countries (as of 12 March 2024) have already taken on a sponsorship as part of the #WeStandBYyou campaign, including Poland's Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski sponsoring Siarhei Tsikhanouski and the German Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth sponsoring Maria Kolesnikova.

Libereco works closely with the Belarusian human rights organisation Viasna and the Politzek.me initiative to stay informed about the situation on the ground and ongoing court cases. Libereco also has a close partnership with RAZAM, the largest organisation representing the interests of Belarusians living in Germany.

Programme for psychosocial support in times of war and crisis
In Libereco's view, a lively and critical civil society needs people "who can get involved, defend their rights and support those in need. Standing up for yourself and others in times of crisis requires a resilient nervous system and the ability to overcome challenges". Libereco helps people to develop these resources.

The organisation offers free individual trauma therapy online and in person as well as training, crisis support and supervision for people involved in civil society, doctors, educators, psychologists, parents and their children.

Libereco also trains journalists and people who document war crimes and human rights violations in trauma-sensitive questioning.

Libereco works with the Somatic Experiencing method, "a body-oriented approach to coping with trauma and stress, which focuses on the nervous system's ability to react, regulate and regenerate without having to talk about the traumatising situation".

Humanitarian work in Ukraine
Libereco has been providing humanitarian aid in Ukraine since 2014 and expanded this considerably with the start of the full-scale Russian war of aggression on 24 February 2022. Libereco is primarily active in places where the major aid organisations and the Ukrainian state are barely or not at all active - away from the major cities, in areas that are difficult to access and in unsafe regions where there is a risk of shelling. The organisation provides humanitarian aid in 11 of Ukraine's 28 oblasts, primarily in southern and eastern Ukraine, which have been particularly hard hit by the war of aggression.

Libereco is focussing on evacuations, the provision of emergency and care accommodation on site, psychosocial aid and food supplies. To this end, the non-governmental organisation works with local partners such as East SOS, Angels of Salvation, We are Brothers, We are Ukrainians, Repair Together and the Chernihiv Human Rights House.

Human rights education
Libereco is also involved in transcultural human rights education. To this end, it prepares information materials and implements its own projects aimed at bringing together those affected from different countries, drawing the attention of the Western European public to human rights violations in Belarus and Ukraine and mobilising them to ensure that they are respected.

From 2011 to 2013, for example, a travelling exhibition on human rights and civil society in Belarus was designed together with Amnesty International, Kultur Aktiv, the Bund für Soziale Verteidigung and the German-Belarusian Society, which provided information in German, English and Russian in several European cities about the situation in Belarus and civil society involvement on the ground. A current project by Libereco and the Gustav Stresemann Institute in Lower Saxony and East SOS combined a trauma-therapeutic approach with human rights education: young refugees from different contexts came together for several workshops and worked together on the graphic novel anthology "Scars of Strength" based on their different experiences of flight and displacement.

Financing
Libereco works with both volunteer members and full-time employees. The work is financed by private donations and membership fees. The non-governmental organisation has also received project-related funding from the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, Terres des Hommes, the German Postcode Lottery, the "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" Foundation and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, among others.

Memberships
Libereco - Partnership for Human Rights is a "member of the Civic Solidarity Platform and MitOst". The organisation is also registered with the Transparent Civil Society Initiative of Transparency International Germany, making its work transparent to the public, members and donors.

Awards and honours
On 8 November 2023, the Bundestag voted in favour of the motion "For a democratic Belarus in the European family" (submitted by the SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and FDP). The motion calls on the German government to continue supporting Libereco's "outstanding civil society work".

On 5 December 2023, Libereco was awarded the Dove of Peace by the District Administrator of the Donnersberg district (Rhineland-Palatinate) as part of the 49th Kirchheimboland Peace Days

Weblinks

 * Website
 * Libereco: Many internally displaced persons in Ukraine have no secure accommodation (in German)
 * Update - Support for Political Prisoners in Belarus in lars-rohwer.de (in German)
 * To make Bialiatski better recognised than Obama: how Europeans fight for Belarusians in euroradio.fm (in Russian)
 * Peter Spuhler: A Thurgau native under pressure in zeit.de (in German)
 * How many Lukashenko critics are now in prison in dw.com (in Ukrainian)
 * Protests in Belarus: Parliamentarians demand release of Swiss woman in Minsk in srf.ch (in German)
 * Help for war refugees from Ukraine; Marktplatz from 10th of March, 2022 in deutschlandfunk.de (in German)
 * 2023-02-24 ZIB 2 from 24th of Febuary, 2023 in youtube.com (in German)
 * Lukashenko's propaganda channel: Henkel & Co. advertise in Belarus in faz.net (in German)
 * Rights group urges Western firms to stop Belarus TV ads in apnews.com
 * How to Help People in Ukraine in time.com
 * What do political prisoners in Belarus gain from the patronage of German politicians? in dw.com (in Russian)
 * Libereco: Sustainable Help for People in Ukraine in thephilanthropist.ch (in German)
 * Analysis: 100 days after the lifting of sanctions - an empirical study on the rule of law and respect for human rights in Belarus in laender-analysen.de (in German)