International Society for Health and Human Rights

To change Colombia by sharing funds and professional resources with a network of 20 NGOs (photos below) that have planned and worked with ISHHR since 2018. We begin with their department, Antioquía, population: 6,407,000.   

ISHHR is an international organization of professionals working with post-conflict survivors around the world. Members have extensive training and experience in working with refugee war traumas and circumventing violence. How we will use this:

• Together we can share successful solutions that inspire front-line workers to help others and facilitate change in this war-torn society.
• Professionally diverse: I`m a Clinical sociologist; others are psychiatrists and psychologists, teachers, HRDs, physiotherapists, eco-dialog leaders, theater (ImagineAction), researchers, and social workers
• Resilience + Creativity: My Ph.D. uncovered how Cambodian survivors used their resilience to overcome their traumas with the Khmer Rouge 30 years before. The same research modality and techniques will access and awaken resilience in Colombia.
• At a Tipping Point: We partner with 20 CSOs to cooperate on several years of capacity-building in Colombia and a conference to present the work. Together we are well-positioned to do more, but they need funds to help them continue in the face of Colombian government cutbacks and oppression. 

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International Society for Health and Human Rights (ISHHR) 

Our Vision and purpose: To improve aid to and protection of persons, families, and children in post-conflict regions who have exper­ienced gross Human Rights violations. We achieve this in our partnerships by:

1. Implementing and teaching evidence-based care, diagnostics, and treatment to improve the quality of aid available;
2. Capacity-building to Change Society incrementally, both for women and girls, men and boys who may be, or become, victims or perpetrators.

The current target area is Antioquía, Colombia.

Our Goals: Through capacity building workshops and training, ISHHR with partners will access the resilience of post-conflict survivors in Colombia and help them to recover, re-discover, acknowledge and harness it to their lives.

My story: Working with Cambodians in the 1980s, I was amazed by their resilience after the violence and horror of the Khmer Rouge, and began to learn from them: first as a friend and mentor, later as a post-graduate scholar and researcher both in Cambodia and Norway (Overland, 2013, 2014). 

Born USA (Vassar 66), lived in Norway since 1980, worked with refugees in asylum centers, language schools, hospital clinics, and Regional Trauma Competency Centre (www.rvtssor.no), ISHHR Council in 2017, interim Secretary-General since 2020.

ISHHR, a voluntary, professional international network, gathers every 3-5 years to implement capacity-building in post-conflict regions. We recruit locally run CSOs as cooperation partners, empowering and learning from them.

Problem: Violence. Addressing it: Education and Care 

While UNSC convened (21.04.21) to discuss killings of social leaders in Colombia:  Sandra Pena, indigenous governor in Cauca who criticized coca plantations, became #52 this year

Specifically, our partners - mostly women-led and women´s rights NGOs in a society recovering after 50 years of warfare - deal with violence in homes, protect human rights defenders, and care for families in times of crisis.

The World Bank - changing Antioquía in five years:  

• < in 2007, 50% of young people attended high school =>

• <= Subsidies for students, grants for schools, teaching problem-solving, and creating safe environments.

• Thanks to an education project, more students finish high school and attend university.

After five years, c. 73% attended secondary school, and c. 82% graduated. Almost 30% attended university.

 https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/01/18/colombia-in-Antioquia

Once almost unknown to some, higher education leads to better jobs, a wider network, respect, and admiration in local communities.

Lead-partner Corporación Región (CR) continues this work with Paz en la Escuela (video above), with 51% girls

ISHHR members are practitioners and academics with state-of-the-art competency in post-traumatic research, care, and treatment. Sharing this with interdisciplinary practitioners is what makes it innovative.

We recruit a Local Organization Committee (LOC) to participate in the capacity building in each new post-conflict region. Since 2018, 20 Colombian-based CSOs have signed up to change attitudes and behavior towards women and eliminate violence towards human rights defenders. Whether in person-to-person or virtual meetings, our interdisciplinary working group continues to gather and learn from each other to establish a firm foundation for collaboration.

Some ISHHR members have neither been in Colombia nor accompanied Human Rights Defenders into forests to facilitate healing in the wild. Thus, what we have to learn from each other may be unique and/or disruptive – a mutual learning process!

In Colombia, we cooperate with two universities in the research community (www.udea.edu.co [National Faculty for Public Health] and www.funlam.edu.co), cultivating education as a conduit for health and strengthening resilience from elementary school to the university level. Together we are facilitating a 3-year program of capacity building on all levels, including an international conference on Caring for the Family in a Time of Crisis, to present the work.

Step 1:Alliance with 20 Colombian CSOs (2018=>). 

2: Capacity-building to reduce violence and its mental health consequences

3: Corporacióon Región(CR) trains educators and pupils in Dialog Circles. The objectives are to change systems that affect the lives of at least half of the population of Aburrá Valley (1,863,000). CR addresses gender discrimination and exclusion by fronting girls' rights to education, freedom from ill-treatment, and improved access to treatment, effecting lasting changes in gender equality

4: Our coalition will work with service providers – teachers, nurses, social workers, HRDs - on evidence-based approaches to mental health and the right to education in group sessions, workshops, supervision, seminars, and conferences. and will achieve specific results by empowering:

• 100 teachers from 10 Metropolitan municipalities trained to develop socio-emotional capacities in schools
• 20 community-based psychosocial caregivers in Colombia to implement Trauma Recovery Techniques (TRT)
• 20 caregivers to implement International Child Development Programme (ICDP) with families
• 20 Change Agents to help their networks by changing GBV-behavior, practices, and attitudes
• 20 workshops on GBV for 200 psychosocial caregivers and HRDs.

5: As a prospective center for implementation of health-bringing initiatives and  prevention of GBV, Antioquia can become a beacon for gender equity in Colombia and worldwide