On Monday, July 6, a new Fundamentals in the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities course was launched, presented as part of the working agenda of AIPG’s Technical Assistance Project on Atrocity Prevention in the Context of the Migration Crisis in Colombia and Ecuador. The project is being conducted with the active involvement of the Colombian and Ecuadorian Offices of the Ombudsman, and is supported with German Federal Foreign Office’s funds by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), Funding Program zivik.
The course intends to provide necessary tools and concepts on the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities for those with official responsibilities and commitments in the human rights sphere and includes the participation of officials from the two countries’ Offices of the Ombudsman, Ministries of Defense, Ministries of Foreign Affairs, and representatives of civil society organizations. Members of the Ombudsman’s Office of the City of Buenos Aires and the Federal Office for Citizens’ Rights of Brazil have also been called to participate, in order to learn about the proposal and to promote its continued diffusion and implementation in other parts of the region.
The new Fundamentals course is complemented by two others, both entitled The Prevention of Mass Atrocities in the Migrant Crisis. The twin courses are comprised of similar content and scope, having been designed for the Colombian and Ecuadorian contexts. These courses work to provide a space to update and deepen current understandings and challenges in human mobility, the protection of rights, and the generation of joint public policies with a prevention-focused approach. They include participants from the Office of the Ombudsman in Colombia and Ecuador, as well as other public institutions, and members of civil society organizations.
Convened by AIPG in partnership with IFA and the Ombudsman’s Office of Colombia, the first of these courses began on Friday, July 31, with a presentation of the progress in the research process of local expert, Professor Irene Cabrera. The subsequent course took place between Monday, August 3 and Friday, August 14. At its launch event, AIPG’s Director of Latin American Programs, Eugenia Carbone, underscored the sense of process that is both present in the project and serves to inspire further work on prevention. She explained:
Online trainings provide an opportunity and a space to give continuity to actions developed in 2019. They are complemented by the joint development of public policies designed to strengthen measures for the identification and mitigation of risks to which people in situations of mobility are exposed. The diverse, heterogeneous, and sustained participation of key Colombian actors in these activities represents a unique opportunity to accompany local efforts in the field of human rights protection with concrete measures designed specifically from the perspective of atrocity prevention.