In June 2021, HURIDOCS embarked on a pilot project to explore what would be possible if we engaged our network of human rights defenders and capacity builders in the co-creation of reusable community resources, based on their collective knowledge.
The pilot project resulted in the development of five community resources on topics related to planning for the information one would need when carrying out the documentation of human rights violations.
Community resources: Plan for the information you need
- What is a database and do I need one?
- Determining your database goals and queries
- Designing your conceptual data model
- Determining your controlled lists of terms
- Creating your data dictionary
The primary audience for these resources are local-level and regional-level human rights defenders engaged in short-term and/or long-term documentation and investigation work. In times of calm or in times of crisis, these defenders need to find appropriately secure and efficient ways to collect, organise and preserve their information about human rights violations.
Our community resources include worksheets and activities, and the content is available in both English and Spanish. We are incredibly grateful to the 48 human rights defenders and capacity builders who contributed to these resources in a variety of ways, including sharing their information management challenges, sharing their knowledge, experience and solutions with us, and providing feedback on draft resources.