A Human Rights House is soon to appear in Kyiv, founded by 10 influential Ukrainian human rights organizations.  The move has been initiated by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.

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.

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.

Yesterday human rights activists presented the project to members of embassies. They were positive about the initiative of civic organizations and are considering ways of supporting it.

The next step will be presentation of the project to representatives of the local authorities. After that a fundraising campaign will commence.