Human Rights Everywhere, for everyone
We are driven by the conviction that human rights are essential to the achievement of universal standards of human dignity and social justice. It is also what brought us together, a group of people of different nationalities, to form Human Rights Everywhere (HREV) and to work for human rights wherever we are and wherever we can have an impact.
The main activities of HREV are as follows:
- We support initiatives to promote and defend human rights in places where they are violated.
- We produce and publish information to raise the awareness among the general public and we prepare materials to serve as a basis for lobbying activities.
- We promote and carry out research, systematisation of information, and training in human rights.
We believe that there is a vital need for this work, defending and actively promoting human rights, at a time when they are threatened, not only by direct violations, but also by discourses and political actions which increasingly aim to misrepresent concepts and manipulate the information available.
HREV works as a network everywhere and for everywhere and this gives us the flexibility needed to adapt to the changing environment.
Our office is virtual but our actions are very real and are based on the experience of the association’s members, gained through extensive field work in conflict zones and areas where human rights are under threat.
What is our legal status?
Since September 2003, HREV has been registered in Madrid as an ASSOCIATION under Constitutional Law 1/2002. Its Spanish office is currently in Santander (Cantabria).
Since April 2009 we have been registered as Human Rights Everywhere a.s.b.l., HREV, in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg under the Law of 21 April 1928 (a.s.b.l. = Association sans but lucrative/a not-for-profit association).
HREV-LAC has also been registered as a not-for-profit association in Panama City since March 2010.
Why so many places?
Because this reflects our roving spirit and because, basically, these are the places where HREV has its biggest centres of activity. Being registered in these three places also enables us to have the legal cover required for our work defending and promoting human rights.
How do we work?
HREV is based on voluntarism. That is to say that the people active in the association have income from other paid work and invest time and expertise in HREV. That is how most of our projects work and our external contributors share this philosophy.
This means that HREV does not have operating costs, or the few that there are (server costs, some travel, etc) are met out of our own pockets. With projects with third parties, we have received funding for the publication of reports or distribution of materials which HREV has produced, but the funding has been managed by our local partners in Latin America.
Why do we operate in this way? Up to now this approach has given us a lot of independence and room for manoeuvre. By having no financial ties, we are free of thematic, political and geographical pressures. We are not against external funding of not-for-profit organisations, but we have felt comfortable with our formula up to now.
Do we never accept donations?
Of course we do. But, up to now, when we have asked for donations, it has been for specific initiatives and always from individuals (as opposed to institutions).
We have done it, for example, in the case of emergency support for indigenous communities displaced from their land, and in these cases we have produced detailed reports for the donors on the amounts received and how they have been spent.
We also receive aid ‘in kind’ or at special prices, when there are technological developments which HREV can not handle itself. In all cases, we try to reduce our dependence on technology to the bare minimum and we work with free software and open source in all possible projects. We believe in and support collaborative work.
Another way to see us is at about us at the Otramérica (Another America) portal.
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THE TEAM
Fidel Mingorance
Fidel Mingorance is HREV’s director and a researcher, increasingly losing patience with the situation in the world around us, but keeping the energy generated by his work in the field. Although his first maps were topographical, and geography is the field of study in which he is (still) being trained, it was concern about the landscape of violence and human rights which, after study with the UNESCO Chair in Peace and Human Rights at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, led him to travel to Colombia in 1999 to work on the ground with threatened human rights defenders and peace communities in the midst of war.
So from 1999 to 2002 he worked in Colombia in various teams of Peace Brigades International (PBI), in Barrancabermeja, Urabá, but mainly in Medellín….and of course, in the Chocó. At the end of this period, Fidel formed the organisation Human Rights Everywhere, in 2003, with a group of human rights defenders, with the aim of continuing to work on this issue in Europe.
Now, as well as leading HREV, he continues to look for ways in which the applications, analysis and knowledge of geography can be combined with the defence of human rights.
Hélène Le Du
Never let a Bretonne with a thirst for discovery leave her world of sea and squalls! It is likely that she will never return, propelled by those fierce winds. Hélène Le Du opened the door to the wider world in 1991, and has never closed it since.
First Germany, then Africa and after that Colombia, and in between, many other destinations in a search related to human rights protection. Hélène is a jurist linguist at the European Union’s Court of Justice, in Luxembourg, and a founder of Human Rights Everywhere. She has worked with Amnesty International and Peace Brigades (PBI) in Medellín/Urabá, and although a lot of her time and energy is taken up with Yann and Laia, two little earthquake-animals, as well with as her work, she finds much of her life’s meaning in HREV and in the effort to promote and defend human rights.
Jesús Alfonso Flórez López
A travelling companion from Colombia. He has been involved in HREV’s activities from the very beginning, but without formally belonging to the organisation. He has now joined the team to continue contributing to its work from his native country.
He has put his training in philosophy, theology and anthropology, in Colombia and France, at the service of processes asserting and claiming the rights of Colombia’s indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians, campesinos and working classes, first through the Diocese of Quibdó-Chocó and currently with FUCLA (Claretian University Foundation) and the Coordinación Regional del Pacífico (Pacific Regional Coordinating Group).
From within HREV he hopes to learn much more from his team-mates and to continue dreaming of the transformation necessary for there to be justice everywhere and for our species to make advances in its process of humanisation, still a work in progress.
Flaminia Minelli
Flaminia Minelli’s commitment to the active defence of human rights is as intense as her work in organisations operating in this field. Over the last 14 years she has taken part in long-term missions in Guatemala, Afghanistan, Bosnia Herzegovina, Kosovo, Angola, Burundi and Colombia. She currently lives in Geneva.
As well as working for a range of UN agencies and programmes, Flaminia has held posts with the International Refugee Committee (IRC) and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
In 2003, after her time in Colombia, where she witnessed at first hand the vulnerability of the civilian population in various regions of the country, including the Chocó, she formed Human Rights Everywhere, together with other human rights defenders.
Vemund Olsen
Vemund has been a member of the Human Rights Everywhere team since the Desecrated Land 2 project began, contributing particularly to the area of indigenous peoples’ rights. As a field volunteer with Peace Brigades International in Colombia-PBI (2001-2003), accompanying human rights defenders and peace communities in Medellin, and in the Urabá and Medio Atrato regions, he witnessed how economic interests can cause serious human rights violations. Since then, he has devoted himself to working for traditional communities whose rights are threatened by industrial megaprojects.
He has a Masters in Human Rights from the University of Oslo, specialising in indigenous rights. He has worked in Venezuela for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and, at the moment, works as a political adviser to the Rainforest Foundation Norway, an NGO dedicated to the protection of tropical rainforests and the promotion of the human rights of the communities living in them.
Paco Gómez Nadal
Paco Gómez Nadal is a journalist and human rights activist and first met the guilty parties of HREV in the Colombian Chocó (where else?). He published the book Los Muertos no Hablan (The Dead can not Speak) on civil resistance to the conflict in Colombia’s Middle Atrato region; El Malcontento, estas palabras (The Malcontent, these words), on the social, political and human rights situation in Panama and Dos Años de Locura (Two Years of Madness), ‘an exercise in memory about what politicians promise, what they do and what they continue doing when they have taken power’. He is leading Otramérica, our portal for analysis and information on Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the publishing house of the same name. He was the impetus behind the creation, subsequent transfer and support of Espacio Común (Common Space), a centre for critical thought and activism in Panama.
Pilar Chato has joined HREV, moving from journalism to doing everything (including journalism), like everyone in this small organisation. She is an essential part of Otramérica and supports the work to raise awareness of the communities in Panama.
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