PBI is member of a consortium of twelve international organisations active in the field of Human Rights, leading ProtectDefenders.eu.

ProtectDefenders.eu is the European Union Human Rights Defenders mechanism, established to protect defenders at high risk and facing the most difficult situations worldwide. ProtectDefenders.eu provides a stable, comprehensive and gender-sensitive EU support to individuals and local actors who strive to promote and defend human rights worldwide. ProtectDefenders.eu is committed to reaching Human Rights Defenders working in remote areas and countries where it is particularly dangerous to work in human rights defence. It also focuses on defenders who are especially targeted, including women human rights defenders, defenders of LGBTI rights, land and environmental rights defenders, economic and social rights defenders, defenders of minorities, lawyers, and those fighting for freedom of expression and association. 

ProtectDefenders.eu is supported by the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), which provides for 95% of its funding. For further information about the consortium, its work and activities please see www.protectdefenders.eu 

As part of the protection mechanism, PBI will provide training and capacity building for HRDs, conduct advocacy work and monitor of the situation of HRDs in countries where PBI Projects are located (currently Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya and Nepal).

PBI will also provide limited material and financial support to HRDs from the respective projects countries to conduct advocacy missions. Information on how HRDs from PBI project countries can access this support is included below.

Support Lines

There are two respective support lines, each with specific protocols and selection criteria. Please read the following information carefully before submitting an application for support. Applications which do not meet the minimum criteria for one of the two programs will not be considered.

Indonesia:

Only HRDs working with human rights organisations based in remote areas are eligible for the support program and grants must be used to facilitate capacity building and training activities for the participating organisations or through selected HRDs.

Selection priority will be given to organizations/HRDs that:

• work with human rights organisations based in remote areas with natural resource conflicts
• work on gender issues;
• can nurture less experienced staff who participate in the program;
• have established networks within their region and could use these to share new skills with other organizations.

The program is open to HRDs working on a variety of human rights issues, but they must be tied to grassroots organisations which are committed to conducting human rights investigations and to supporting the individuals for two years after the grant is completed with their own resources.

There are a maximum of 20 support grants possible each year.

If your organization is interested in the program, please send a short explanation of your interest in English or Indonesian to indocoordinator(at)peacebrigades.org with contact information for two references from local, national or international organisations working on human rights that are familiar with your work.

Latin America:

Only HRDs from countries with a permanent field presence (Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico) are eligible:

A limited number of support grants are available to facilitate advocacy missions for local HRDs and human rights organisations. The maximum number of supported advocacy missions per year and country various between 1-4.

Please carefully read the eligibility criteria below in order to determine if you can apply for support. If you or your organisation do not meet the minimum criteria or you are interested in other means of support, we invite you to visit the mechanism website which provides detailed information about support opportunities provided by other members of the consortium.
Grants are provided to support HRDs to plan, carry out and conduct follow-up to advocacy mission in Europe or North America in order to improve their support and protection networks with key actors, increase their capacity for national and international advocacy, and get a better understanding of the functioning of various international human rights systems, bodies and protection mechanism.

Eligible HRDs should:

• be working for an organisation, network and/or collective with a proven track record of human rights work within a country with permanent PBI field presence (Colombia, Mexico, Honduras or Guatemala);
• have the approval of their organisation or collective;
• be able to provide at references from at least two different local, national or international human rights organisations that can recommend their work;
• have limited access to international support networks or very limited resources to maintain/expend existing networks;
• be working in a high-risk situation due to their human rights work and/or context
• have the capacity and willingness to prepare and follow up carried out advocacy missions with PBI (PBI will provide support to the selected organizations for this)
• explain on their application form the added value of supported advocacy mission for their respective human rights work and how the planned advocacy mission is a strategic action related to a pre-determined plan to create structural change that will advance the defenders human rights work;
• work on thematic priorities of the respective PBI projects (see respective project websites).

PBI will prioritize applications from HRDs who are particularly vulnerable due to gender, sexual orientation, the issue they work on (e.g. land rights; impunity, etc.), or their geographical location (e.g. remote or rural areas, conflict area).

PBI aims to maintain gender balanced support and places no restrictions on the eligibility of defenders to their gender or gender identity.

If you meet the eligibility criteria and would like to apply, please fill out the indicated application form and send it to the contact person in your country:

• Colombia: coordinacion.europa(at)pbicolombia.net
• Mexico: repeuropa(at)pbi-mexico.org
• Honduras: coordinacion(at)pbi-honduras.org
• Guatemala: apoyo(at)pbi-guatemala.org