For those of us who work in defense of human rights, issues related to solidarity are both theoretical questions and constant practical concerns. It is in the nature of our work to ask what it means to establish bonds of solidarity with diverse and sometimes distant individuals or communities, what solidarity demands of us, and what limits solidarity may have in contexts of complex crises where different interests are at stake simultaneously. It is also in the nature of our work to seek, build, and promote concrete practices of solidarity. That is, to strive to ensure that solidarity is not just a declaration of intentions, but gives rise to real actions that contribute to the strengthening of a robust and plural civil society, capable of facing today’s daunting challenges.

At Dejusticia, our training programs and other spaces for the collective construction of knowledge are crucial means of enriching our understanding of solidarity and bringing it closer to our day to day practice. Thus, the Escuela D, a school of human rights practice in which we design training programs, co-creation spaces and workshops, is one of our strategies for implementing an amphibious approach—between research and practice—to connect people, ideas, and experiences and expand the resources available to human rights defenders to carry out their work.

In these spaces, the knowledge and experience of those who participate are made available to others, to ensure that the steps that each one manages to take contribute to the advancement of the movement as a whole. We strive for this because we are committed to a broad and plural understanding of knowledge, in which the participation of diverse actors with varied backgrounds—academics, public servants, activists, social leaders, among others—is the best way to build solutions tailored to the needs of each community. Working collaboratively, with innovative approaches and methodologies, allows us to join forces to make accurate diagnoses of the challenges we face and design increasingly effective solutions to problems that would be impossible to solve piecemeal with individual approaches by each of our organizations. 

In this issue of The Global South Newsletter we present projects that have solidarity at their core, both with and within the human rights movement. These projects also showcase examples where training spaces have been a key tool to materialize these efforts to jointly advance the interests of the human rights movement. In the first text, Christy Crouse and Isabel de Brigard tell us how the question of solidarity with human rights defenders influenced the design of the fellowship program for activists and defenders from the Global South that Dejusticia is currently developing. In the second, the Escuela D team presents Enlaza programs, an innovative strategy with which we seek to strengthen human rights organizations facing important coordination and collaboration challenges, such as the protection of the Amazon.