Reintegration of veterans through education: human rights in action
Amnesty International Ukraine, together with the Danish section, the Danish government, and Ukrainian organizations such as the Women’s Veterans Movement, and Hospitallers, is launching a project for veterans in the new year.
If you were to ask with what people return from war - besides trauma, physical and moral, besides numbers that will never be called again, besides strange habits, painful memories, and incredible strength and ability to distinguish what is important in life from what is insignificant - it is a heightened sense of justice. An internal compass, hardened in battles and trials, that does not allow you to put up with injustice, even when the world gets tired of noticing it.
In civilian life, any experience from military service can and should be used – from stress management skills to the ability to sleep under any conditions. But a heightened sense of justice? Often, it just doesn’t allow you to live. It becomes the thing that causes you to break down. This is the reason why military personnel who have returned to civilian life are often later taught how to conduct difficult negotiations with a person with a grenade. A comrade-in-arms who is in unspeakable pain. "Equal to equal," "I know how it feels, but now you need to calm down..."
Alongside physical and psychological rehabilitation, today’s Ukrainian landscape offers veterans opportunities for retraining and starting their own businesses. And this is great (although, of course, it depends on implementation).
The new team of Amnesty International Ukraine and I decided to do something different. Something that could channel the very desire for justice in the right direction - human rights education for veterans.
Veterans as astronauts
Returning from war, veterans often face a sense of lack of purpose in civilian life and neglect by the state and society. Our project will empower Ukrainian female and male veterans through human rights education to better understand, exercise and promote their rights, as well as conduct an information campaign to help a wider audience in Ukrainian society and government officials better understand the situation of veterans.
To overcome stigma, provide better support for veterans and their families, and recognize the skills and resilience veterans have gained as a value and advantage, rather than a disadvantage and a heavy experience that weighs them down. Olena Herasymiuk from the Hospitallers put it very well when she noted at one of the project planning meetings that veterans should be presented and perceived as people with powerful experience, not powerful trauma. We are like astronauts: we've been where no one else has, we've managed to adapt and come out of that hell alive.
Thus, planning the project at Amnesty International Ukraine was not an abstract process. We actively engaged with veterans and veteran communities to understand their needs, challenges, and aspirations. Our main goal was not just to develop a programme but to create a project that truly meets the challenges faced by veterans. At the outset, we held a series of meetings with relevant organizations, such as the Women's Veterans Movement, the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation, and others.
"They shared their vision of veterans' problems with us, gave us feedback at the stage when this project was a one-page outline of several basic ideas... And this feedback became the basis for the concept of the human rights education project, which is focused on veterans' needs," says Veronika Puhach. It is she, the wife of Mykola Bakaiev, a soldier and, before mobilization, an Amnesty International staff member who is currently serving in the Donetsk direction, who will coordinate the project in the Ukrainian office.
(In fact, almost everyone in our team is closely connected to the military – starting with our director Veronika Velch, whose husband Oleh Sentsov has been fighting since the full-scale invasion began, or researcher Olena Kozachenko, the wife of a volunteer fighter, Ihor Slaiko, who has been fighting since 2014... And ending with the person writing this article – who has four years of war in Donbas behind her, the loss of a loved one at the front, and the full range of 'typical' challenges of returning to civilian life.
We are very pleased to be able to teach individuals how to protect their rights in real life, not just publicly condemn violations of these rights).
Open discussions, not with organizations but with groups of veterans including Mariia Berlinska, Halyna Klempouz, Oksana Yakubova, Olena Herasymiuk and Nazar Pavlyk, allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of the situation. In particular, during the discussions, veterans stressed the importance of holding human rights workshops for veterans and their families not only in large cities but also in small remote communities. They also stressed that it would be best if some veterans taught other veterans.
"It is especially important in social initiatives that the target groups are directly involved in both the planning and implementation of these projects. This is exactly what will happen in our veterans' project. We involved veterans' organizations and male and female veterans themselves at different stages of project development, and now they will be key participants in the implementation phase: some of them will conduct training for others, pass on their knowledge and experience. Others will help create training materials and organize events," says Veronika Puhach.
The project will create an online platform where veterans will be able to share their experiences, ask questions, share their thoughts and suggestions for improving the project.
Fundamentals and prospects
The curriculum will be implemented in an online format, which will allow veterans from all regions to participate, including those without accessible offline learning resources. This will also be an important step towards including male and female veterans with disabilities, for whom mobility is a challenge.
Completion of the program includes the collaborative development and creation of a roadmap of services for veterans. Male and female veterans who successfully complete the training will apply this knowledge in practice by teaching other male and female veterans to navigate the roadmap of services and providing advisory support.
A series of videos and publications will also be produced, along with a number of public talks, to highlight the challenges veterans face and help society better understand their experiences. This will help to change the public's attitude towards veterans, show their experience, skills and resilience.
Human rights training, public speaking experience, creating content for the media and participating in media campaigns - all of this allows veterans not only to "complete" another training but also provides them with effective tools to realize their rights. Training veterans as human rights defenders will help create a sustainable network of professionals who can effectively train others and influence social change.
We hope to not only increase awareness but also create a basis for the development of sustainable initiatives aimed at improving the legal status of veterans in Ukraine. The project will be launched early next year and will last for two years. The application process will be open in February-March. The selection of 25 initiative male and female veterans who want to realize their potential in human rights protection and, in particular, in supporting other male and female veterans in exercising their rights, will be based on motivation. The start of the application process will be announced on the pages and official website of Amnesty International Ukraine, as well as in the Ukrainian media. On Censor.NET - for sure.
Valeriia Burlakova, veteran, Media Officer at Amnesty International Ukraine
