Richelieu Forum ‘Human Rights in Ukraine: Optics of Change’

This year’s Richelieu Forum, held annually by the National Agency for Civil Service of Ukraine, was dedicated to the topic ‘Human Rights in Ukraine: Optics of Change’.

The DECIDE project was this event’s traditional partner.

The Richelieu Forum provides an opportunity to engage in an open discussion about the future of public service within the context of war, reconstruction, and EU accession.

The forum agenda included:

• strategic discussions on the transformation of public service and local government service;

•  an integrity forum for officials and civil servants;

•  an international seminar on accessibility and inclusion.

Basic human rights include the right to education, safety and protection for every child, and these rights are now guaranteed by communities.

The war has changed childhood in Ukraine. Every day, children are confronted with things they should never have to experience: sirens, shelling, and loss. And it is communities that become the place where a decision is made whether children will feel protected and whether they will have the support of teachers, psychologists, and parents.

The Decide Project presented the outcomes of two years of collaborative efforts within our joint initiative with the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine, and the National Agency of Ukraine on Civil Service. This initiative was supported by the Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine and was titled ‘Getting Stronger Together!’

‘In 2022, after several months of providing humanitarian aid to communities, we planned further steps to support communities during the war and understood that 3.8 million internally displaced persons were not only a humanitarian challenge but also an issue of integration. This is especially pertinent when you consider that 24 per cent of them are children and adolescents. Then, during endless blackouts and shelling, we decided to focus on what we do best: working with communities. This is how the ‘Getting Stronger Together!’ initiative was born at DECIDE,’ says Valentyna Poltorak, DECIDE Project Manager

During the implementation of this initiative:

• 670 community leaders, local councillors and education administrators underwent training in five programmes developed jointly with the National Agency of Ukraine on Civil Service, including in the field of human rights.

• 23,000 educators from 813 communities took part in the ‘Getting Stronger Together!’ course. It focuses on how to integrate children and adolescents from other communities, avoid conflicts, and be tolerant and responsible.

• 17,000 specialists from the Inclusive Resource Centres, as well as school psychologists, teachers and teaching assistants working with children with special educational needs, have undergone training.

• 220 trainers from postgraduate teacher training institutions in 21 regions of Ukraine teach the course ‘Getting Stronger Together!’

The initiative has involved more than 400,000 children and adolescents.

A community of over 9,000 administrators and educators has been established. To date, over 60 webinars on psychosocial support in wartime have been conducted for this community.

In collaboration with Dmytro Lubinets’ team, information stands were set up at 1,500 administrative service centres across the country. In frontline territories and temporarily occupied areas, knowing your rights can be a matter of life or death, or help you return home by enabling you to contact the ombudsman’s and human rights organisations’ hotlines.

A legal awareness campaign focusing on children’s rights will soon be launched in the frontline regions.

Nowadays, it is the result of the joint efforts of hundreds of administrators, educators, psychologists, and community leaders. This has all been made possible thanks to our partners and the DECIDE Project team.

The DECIDE project is implemented by NGO DOCCU and PHZH International Projects in Education with the support of the Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine.

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