Welcome to new Human Rights House in Chernihiv

Another Human Rights House has been opened in Chernihiv, Ukraine, to become a focal point for human rights defenders from different regions of the country. Among its founders are public organizations from Uzhhorod, Crimea, Luhansk and Chernihiv.

Chairman of the Human Rights House is Serhiy Burov, head of the public association “Smart” (Chernihiv) and a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.

In fact, it is a resource center that will provide training services, opportunities for public campaigns and even temporary accommodation for specialists in the field of human rights and civil society activists from all over Ukraine. The educational format of the Human Rights Houses was borrowed by Ukrainian human rights activists from their Belarusian colleagues, who in 2006 founded a Human Rights House in Vilnius, after it became clear that domestic implementation of this project was impossible.

The Chernihiv Human Rights House is not the first one in Ukraine. In 2013, at the initiative of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, with the participation of 10 influential human rights organizations, a Human Rights House was opened in Kyiv.

The first Human Rights House was opened in 1989 in Norway, and in 1994 there appeared an International Human Rights House Network, which currently includes organizations from 15 countries.