In late March this year, for the first time in six years, the HURIDOCS team finally had the opportunity to be in the same (physical) room, in Marrakesh, Morocco.
HURIDOCS is a remote organisation, with 27 people spread across more than 20 countries, including our small office in Geneva. An in-person meeting had been on the agenda for a while, delayed by a global pandemic and financial constraints due to the ongoing funding crisis.
When the opportunity finally came, we wanted to make it count. For five days, we dedicated ourselves to strengthening trust within our team, defining our shared purpose and strategic direction, improving how we work together, and turning it all into clear agreements and concrete commitments for the path ahead.
No slides. No screens. Just the team.
People, Purpose, Practice, and the Path Forward
We kicked off the retreat with People. Revisiting our shared history, 44 years of building tools for human rights documentation and supporting civil society worldwide. And of course, getting to know each other face-to-face: colleagues we work with every day but rarely get to “see”.
From there, we turned to Purpose. The world is changing fast, with rapid AI development, shrinking civic spaces, and increasing threats to human rights, accountability and justice. Our work and, therefore, our strategy need to keep pace. During the retreat, the team reflected on who we want to be and what our community needs from us.
On Practice, each team had dedicated time to dig into what is working and what is not, with the Technology, Programmes, and Development & Communications teams working separately.
The final stretch focused on the Path Forward and how we communicate and collaborate across teams, where we recognised that despite different roles and priorities, everyone is working towards the same goal. That shared understanding became the foundation for concrete commitments on how we move forward together.
“It was truly special for the entire HURIDOCS team to be able to gather in person.
We accomplished a considerable amount of concrete work, but even more importantly, developed profound relationships and a camaraderie that will facilitate the many important endeavours that need to be done moving forward.”— Grace Kwak Danciu, Chair of the HURIDOCS Board
But the retreat wasn’t only work. We cooked together, played games, and did excursions to the desert and the city together. We also took a moment to recognise colleagues who are celebrating five and ten-year work anniversaries at HURIDOCS:
- Celebrating ten years of service in 2026: Alberto Casado (Software Engineer), Joan Gallego (Software Engineer), Rafa Pólit (Tech Lead).
- Celebrating five years of service in 2026: Ali Altıparmak (Software Engineer), Bono Olgado (Senior Documentalist), Hyebin Bina Jeon (Programme Officer), Lucía Gómez (Programme Manager), Phurbu Dolma (Programme Officer), Salva Lacruz (Programme Manager), Santiago Borrajo (Software Engineer), and Yolanda Booyzen (Director of Development and Communications).
Their dedication is at the heart of what makes this organisation unique and impactful.
A retreat is easy to reduce to an agenda. But what stayed with us was simpler: the reminder that behind every tool we build, every decision we make, there is a team of people who care deeply about this work: strengthening the human rights community through documentation technology and strategies to secure justice.
Humanity is one of our core values, the belief that real solutions are built around real people, not assumptions, and that technology exists in service of humans, not the other way around. It would be strange not to apply that same thinking to ourselves. There is something irreplaceable about sharing the same physical space with the people you have been working alongside for years. Our first team-wide gathering since 2019 wasn’t a luxury. It was us practising what we preach.
We already had a strong team spirit, built remotely across time zones and cultures. But bringing all of that diversity into one place reminded us that it is also one of our greatest strengths.
See the photo gallery below:
This article was prepared with the editorial assistance of AI but all information, thought and analysis was done and reviewed by Alejandra Kaiser.