Solidarity Organizational Health Language of Rights Cultures of Respect March 11, 2025

The Symposium on Strength and Solidarity for Human Rights : A Reader

What follows in this Reader is a collection of practical reflections
and readings included for the purpose of supporting those who are
looking to organize discussion groups on the practice of solidarity
and on building strength in their organizations and within and
between movements. These materials were the primary content used
by The Symposium on Strength and Solidarity for Human Rights.
What is the Symposium on Strength and Solidarity for
Human Rights?

The Symposium on Strength and Solidarity for Human Rights is a
five-year project, ending in 2025, aimed at provoking new efforts and
energy for building organizational strength and increasing solidarity
across the human rights field. To that end, the Symposium sought to
be a source of ideas and provocation within the global human rights
movement, convening frontline activists, organizational leaders, and
movement builders in conversations about the challenges that rights
defenders face.

As the Symposium comes to a close, a number of participants
have told us of plans to create their own versions of the meeting in
future years, either focused on their own region or community, or
built around a particular theme. In producing this Reader, our aim
has been to provide them with information about the approach, and
access to the materials we used, in case they find this helpful. They
may of course choose to adopt a different approach. In the text that
follows, we will usually refer to “our” Symposium rather than “the”
Symposium, to underline that other options exist and we do not
intend to prescribe our own method.

A copy of the reader can be downloaded here.