The Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York is opening a Call for Nominations for a new initiative, the Protective Writing Fellowship for Human Rights Defenders at Risk. The Centre is looking for up to two human rights defenders (HRDs) who will stay in York for 3 months, starting on 1 May 2020.

This is a new, exciting programme for HRDs in key or leadership positions in their local human rights movements, keen to develop their own and their organisation’s or movement’s research potential, and record learnings from their human rights work to be shared with the global human rights community.

The Centre for Applied Human Rights in York, United Kingdom, provides HRDs at risk with an opportunity to enhance their research skills and share their expertise with other HRDs, academics and students. During their stay, the fellows will conduct research on a current human rights topic relevant to their work in their home country/region. Centre staff will supervise the fellows in their research projects. For specific information on eligibility criteria and an overview of the Fellowship, please see attached documentation.

Nominations are accepted from recognised civil society organisations and/or organisations working specifically with HRDs. Organisations may nominate up to two defenders. Organisations may not nominate their own employees.

To nominate a HRD for the Protective Writing Fellowship, please return the following documentation to sanna.eriksson@york.ac.uk:

• nomination form (filled out by the nominating organisation),
• personal statement (filled out by the nominee),
• signed reference letter on letterhead paper from the organisation the nominee conducts their human rights work with, and
• scanned copy of the picture page of the nominee’s passport.

Please keep the name of each document as it is, adding the name of the nominee separated by underscore from the name of the nominating organisation at the front of the file name. E.g.:

Name of nominee_Name of organisation_original document name.doc

All the documentation should be sent together in one email from the nominating organisation’s email account. Deadline for nominations is 23:59 GMT Tuesday 3 December 2019.

For more information on the Protective Writing Fellowship and the Centre for Applied Human Rights, please visit http://www.york.ac.uk/cahr, and for more information on the Human Rights Defender Hub, please see https://www.hrdhub.org/