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Anna: Hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of our podcast PH-I Against the Odds, dedicated to sharing knowledge and practical experiences amongst human dignity defenders around the world. PH-I Against the Odds is produced by and for the Phoenix Initiative for Human Dignity, a collaborative platform that supports the building of sustainable, resilient human dignity projects and organizations.

At the Phoenix Initiative, we are convinced that learning from each other's experiences is often much more powerful than anything else. Today's topic is on the importance of supporting and nourishing each person's strengths to improve the impact of human dignity work. Providing those you work with or participating yourself in opportunities for training and capacity building is one of the mainstream ways to better identify and use your strengths.

But another way, still very much unexplored in the human rights sector lies in personal mentoring and coaching. We are very honored today to have Vicki Prais with us on the microphone. Vicki is an award-winning human rights lawyer and independent human rights consultant with over 28 years of experience stretching from working with civil society organizations such as Penal Reform International with international actors, such as the Council of Europe or the United Nations, or government actors such as the UK government. She is also an avid defender of the importance and value of mentoring and coaching and offers individual coaching sessions for human rights defenders. Welcome Vicki and we are very grateful to have you today with us.

Vicki: Thank you Anna and I'm really delighted to be here today. 

Anna: Let me start right away with my first question. Can you tell us more about the added value of mentoring and coaching for human dignity defenders and especially what is different in mentoring and coaching from continuous professional learning and capacity building as we know it today? 

Vicki: This is a great question and a great place to start because I think, as you say, this is a very sort of kind of type of work that we do in our sector, but mentoring and coaching play a hugely important role for human rights defenders and are not to be underestimated.It can be a very powerful and empowering experience for the individual and beneficial to them. I think it's safe to say that we all need a listening ear, a critical friend, and someone really to walk alongside us in the human rights sector. Otherwise, it can be a very lonely road, very emotionally draining, and challenging to go it alone. So, coaching and mentoring are really critical in that regard to support an individual. 

And I think I always talk about it in terms of building a board of advisors that we have our own personal board of advisors, people who we can call upon, be it a coach, be it a mentor to support us there. Basically, as mentors, we offer advice and insights, and guidance from our own lived experiences. Right, and that's often either a medium or a longer-term relationship. It's a lot more directive than coaching, and for human rights defenders, mentoring might be needed for confidence, for job support and advice, for promotion, for leadership. There are lots of ways and means that mentors can support their mentees in the human rights sector. 

As coaches, we are there to support human rights defenders, perhaps in a little bit more of a directive way, perhaps in short bursts, and it's a lot more task-focused. Also, we, as coaches, deploy specific techniques and exercises. And it's there, we're there to support human rights defenders with a particular issue. It could be motion, it could be a job application, helping somebody prepare for an interview, or perhaps a work-related issue that they need to work through. 

So to me, a mentor and a coach in our sector is part and parcel of the work that we do and, as I say, building and growing a board of advisors. In terms of the difference between coaching, mentoring, and professional development. To me, professional development feels more like a mandatory requirement for a specific profession. So, as a human rights lawyer, I know that if I were in practice, I would have a certain number of professional development hours I would need to do. Whereas mentoring and coaching are more of a..., let's say, voluntary endeavour on the part of the individual and something that they opt in to do rather than that they have to do, there, and it's usually that initiation by the individual and capacity building perhaps is of a different sort of vehicle together.

Anna: Excellent, I really like this idea of a board of advisors. I never thought about this way, but it makes it very tangible, so if I understand this, mentoring is more about a long-term relationship, and the coaching is more about very specific moments. How does a typical session look like or what does the typical mentoring part and coaching part look like?

Vicki: The mentoring, exactly as you say it's often a more kind of informal engagement that you would have with somebody, and it's you sharing your experiences, perhaps you're sort of further down the line. I have, as you said, 28 years' experience in the sector. You are sharing your experience, your lived experience of that with perhaps somebody who's closer to sort of starting out in their career or just starting out in their career there.

Mentoring really can take lots of different shapes and forms. It can be an online relationship or an in-person relationship. For me, it usually takes the form of more sort of periodic meetings, perhaps a bit more ad hoc, really to catch up on somebody's progress, to answer any questions they may have, to see how they're doing, and perhaps to introduce them to somebody in my network in that respect. But mentoring, you know, it can be for a shorter period of time, actually mentoring around a particular issue or something that an individual might need. So that's really how I see mentoring. 

Whereas coaching, as you rightly say, is more structured. As a coach, I'm usually instructed by my client to help with a particular issue or task when I say they want to apply for a job with, you know, the UN, or they want to apply for a job with an NGO, I will help them put together their application materials. Or as I had just before Christmas, somebody asking for some support with preparing for an interview for the International Criminal Court, I would help them with that. 

So, it's a very task-oriented sort of engagement that I would have with the client for that particular piece of work. We would always start by having a discovery call. I meet them usually online, really to see whether there's chemistry between us and how we might work together. I want to learn more about that person, where they're at the moment in their career. And we know that working in the human rights sector can be up and down. It can be challenging there. I really want to understand where they're at professionally and where their direction of travel is. So, we have that. And then I share my options with that individual as to where and how I can support them. And then I leave it very much up to them to take a view whether or not they want to move forward.

I never put any pressure on anybody. I will walk alongside that person as and when they need that support. If they do want to work together, then we will set up a power hour session. I work through power hours. And usually there will be work in advance for me to do, be it preparing somebody's CV and cover letter for a particular role or preparing a personal brand audit as I do for my personal branding power hours. 

And then we hold our session, which is usually for about an hour, an hour and 15 minutes. It's a safe space. It's a confidential space, because often more comes out than just that particular issue so I'm there to be that kind of container and to be a listening ear and then following the session I'm always there for follow-up and support for the individual and I always want to hear how people are doing I want to kind of follow somebody's journey to hear those success stories, but also to be a support there if it doesn't go well or to commiserate, so I always invite somebody to tell me how their interview went or whether they got shortlisted for a job. So that's what a coaching experience would look like. 

Anna: And I think this last part is very important when we talk about learning from failures, right? Because I can see more and more that people understand that failure is actually a success because we can learn so much from it and we will learn much more from it when we have talked about it with somebody who can guide us in this learning, right?

Vicki: Absolutely, yeah. No, it's definitely so, you know, what didn't go so well. Okay, I know not to do that next time. I need to kind of improve on that particular technical skill or asset for the next time. So, there's always learning absolutely. There's always learning in those failures. 

Anna: Have yourself benefited from coaching and mentoring throughout your career? I mean, you have a very impressive impact on the human rights world. You have so much experience. You were in the sector for so long. Have you had a coaching experience or a mentoring experience and how has it helped you? 

Vicki: Yes, to both basically. I did have a coach help me when I left the foreign office. So, I was just to give a little bit of context, I was a human rights advisor at the foreign office here in the UK for three years where I was advising foreign office staff on any human rights issues affecting British nationals in detention overseas. And as you can imagine, it was a pretty exhausting draining. So, I left that role at the end of 2017, not quite knowing what next, where next.  And I worked with a coach for some time to kind of help me navigate my way through that, what next and where next. And it was hugely valuable. I have to say it really was. This individual, she helped to ground me, to advise me. And I really cherish the experience that I had with her. we did part company, we went our separate ways, but I think, you know, it was at the right moment and time and I kind of then launched myself into the world of independent consultancy very soon after that.

I have benefited from a coach in terms of a mentor. I talk about my human rights family, and I have people who are in my human rights family who I look up to who have guided me and who have walked alongside me and who I feel that I can go to for support, advice, insight, you know, and they might not know that they're their mentors to me, but they are, or I see them as my mentors. So, I have benefited from both and really, that's why I'm so keen and passionate about doing this work myself. 

Anna: But you said that you had left the foreign office, or it was more or less closer to your decision to leave the foreign office when you started to dive into coaching and when you had your own first coaching experiences for civil society organizations or any organizations or even government offices. Do you think there is. They should include this possibility for their staff or their ongoing advisor into their own professional learning, maybe also. How could this be done? Because in the end, we would like people to stay, right?

And in the end, we would like people to bring the best out of themselves to move the human dignity movement forward and not necessarily to leave. So how could an organization actually integrate this? What would your lines?

Vicki: Absolutely, and you raise a very important point there that in our sector, there is a huge level of attrition. There's a huge level of people leaving the sector leaving organizations through stress, through just the nature of the work that we do is so demanding there. So as organizations, you want to retain your staff. You want to keep them motivated, engaged there. I think the integration of coaches in organizations is a huge benefit and huge value to that organization. 

First of all, it sends a signal from that organization, the management, that they value their staff, that they want to keep their staff as long as they can. And as you say, it brings a happier workforce. If you have that kind of coach, they're available to them. And I do think that some organizations already have coaches there or at least kind of go to them when they need them or if they need some leadership, you know they might send their staff on a leadership training course or something like this.

But it's interesting I was thinking about this as they're about models and ways to do it and one thing that strikes me as an option is having a coach in residence idea whereas the name suggests, you are attached to that organization as a coach there and then you provide that ongoing support to staffers, either on a one-to-one basis or in a group setting as well because there's a lot of value in that peer support there. So, if you, as a coach, can kind of facilitate that and bring that in. So, a coaching residence is an option that I thought about. Or you have it on a more ad hoc basis where a coach comes in, gives a workshop or one-to-one sessions as and when the civil society organization needs it and needs that support.

Or, as I said, the other option is that the organization sends out its staff to particular training for whatever it may be. I was looking at various different sort of models there, and for example, the Essex University has something called the Human Rights Leadership Lab, so that's done out of Essex University there and I know a lot of people have gone on this course there which you know supports leaders, would be leaders in our sector there and it's very highly regarded. 

So yeah, there are different ways and means but the one thing I will say is funding and finances and we know that for CSOs you know that's a challenge. Right, in terms of, you know, finding the funds for coaches that are nice to have, but is it, you know, something that they can actually find 

the funds for.

Anna: Yes, that is always the biggest challenge, I think, in our world. But I am personally convinced that if you have passionate and motivated people you work with, you also have much more success on the fundraising side because you can much better defend the cause and defend what you do and convince people why they should invest in yourself and in your organization which is what funding and fundraising is all about.

Thank you so much, Vicki, for sharing these insights and this knowledge with us. It's very exciting. I like the coach and residence idea very much. I keep wondering how this would work in terms of trust and confidence that, you know, information does not transgress any personal limits and I would love to explore this maybe in another episode. 

We are coming slowly to an end to this one and I want to thank our listeners for tuning in. I hope that you will make a lot of use of the takeaways from this episode and I'm very much looking forward to broadcasting the next one.

This is a machine-created transcript, it might not be perfect but it allows you to use machine translation, and for those who are hearing impaired, to read our podcast.

Anna: Hello and welcome to the Phoenix Initiative for Human Dignity podcast Against All Odds. The Phoenix Initiative is a collaborative platform that supports the building of sustainable and resilient human dignity projects and organizations. We have developed this podcast to share inspiring stories from around the globe on challenges and opportunities to successfully defend human dignity and to allow our audience to learn from each other. 

Today we are blessed to have with us Stephen Nyein Han Tun.

Stephen is an anthropologist and indigenous person from the Northern Shan State of Myanmar. He lived many months amongst the Rohingya people, marginalized ethnic communities and other vulnerable populations and helped local organizations with proposal writing, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation, supervision and research training. He lives today in exile in Thailand, where he's working with an international human rights foundation on the topics of human rights in Myanmar. And he regularly publishes human rights research articles at Strengthening Human Rights and Peace Research at the IRD and the Tea Leaf Center in Chiang Mai. Welcome to this podcast, Stephen. 

Stephen: Welcome, yes. 

Anna: How are you doing? 

Stephen: Yes, I am fine and thank you for having me and thank you for this opportunity. So, and here I'm Steven. I'm ready to answer your question now. 

Anna: Perfect. Very good. How about if you start to tell us a little bit more about yourself and the work that you're doing at the moment? 

Stephen: Yes, and yeah, my name is Steven Nyein Han Tun. So, as you said, I'm from Northern Shaanxi, originally from Northern Shaanxi, and I'm an indigenous person, but I grew up in city and also to join a Master of Social Science and development study, which was an Indonesian Human Rights, Indonesian Social Science Program in Thailand, which was in 19 as I finished my degree in 2019 and after that I went back to Myanmar so and in the period of COVID -19 in 2020 and 2019 December, so it was a dirt time for Myanmar but at the time I tried to volunteer for my indigenous community not only my indigenous community but also for other indigenous people in Myanmar because they don't they did not know about COVID -19 and also did because COVID -19 only in the Myanmar language which was not indigenous language that is why most of the indigenous people they did not know about the what is COVID -19 and how to prevent COVID -19 and how to get medication.

So, at the time in 2020, I was in Myanmar, and I have been the indigenous community and marginalized community. They are not indigenous, they are also marginalized groups. And after 2020 and in 2021, so it was a military coup in Yangon. I was in Yangon and at the time I worked with INGO for the possession of anthropologists so especially we work for the medical or medical action for the marginalized group which is also including indigenous people and also and other for instance, LGBTQIA and also some of the Rohingya group. So yeah, that is why in 2021 I was in the Rohingya area for many months and tried to learn about Rohingya people and also their behavior, especially their health -sick behavior and also their rights. 

After living in many months in Rohingya area, so in 2021, I joined with Equality Myanmar because I'm interested in human rights and justice and also documentation of human rights violations. So that is why I had to move to Thailand. Chiang Mai from Myanmar, I also brought my family and then 2021 to 2025 I am living in Chiang Mai and then late 2021. So, I'm especially I'm working for the position of plant development and mill, you know, and I work for donor reporting, and I work for proposal writing and also sometimes I work with international expert in proposal writing and also and monitoring evaluation and learning and accountability. And so, actually I like this position because I have only, you know, my skill is only writings and also games with the international donor. And also, i have some background of social science and political science. And i know about Myanmar politics and history. And, you know, in Myanmar we cannot say only Burmese politics. We can't, we should, we need to thought about the indigenous politics and also Burmese politics and also the regional dimensions of the Bawa dynamics and dimension of culture. Also we had different politics in Myanmar. So that is why Myanmar is, you know, is having over 70 years, the people are still fighting many armed groups and Burmese military hunger. is controlling the country since 1962 until now so over 70 years they are still controlling the country but in Myanmar, on the other hand in Myanmar we have a lot of ethnic armed groups, so and ethnic armed groups is also indigenous armed group so we have a lot of armed groups now so and after 2021 we had a lot of armed groups and so that is a pre-information about myself and about my journey since 2021.

Anna: Very exciting journey, actually. And you must have seen a lot of things that people have only heard about over these last years. So I'm very curious to hear, Steven, now from what you have done when you were still living in Myanmar and from what you're doing now. because the topic of our podcast on the topic of partnerships, and the importance of partnerships for human dignity work. And you are actually in a very good position to tell us about this importance of partnership for the work. What are the challenges that you encountered both while you were still in Myanmar and you are now? And did partnerships help? Did you have partnerships and how did it help you? 

Stephen: Yeah, so regarding partnerships, I want to say two things. So first is partnership, which is related to my work. So, we have international partnership, donor, and friends, and also international community. As we are human rights organizations, so partnership is very important now.  Because, you know, Since 2021, most of CSO from Myanmar, human rights defenders, individual human rights defenders and activists, they don't have a lot of Hanna shit. and some of the human rights defenders are facing very difficult situations. So they don't have international partnership. They don't have a local partnership. And also most of human rights CSO in Myanmar, from Myanmar, so because we are here in Germany and not outside the country, we have CSO partnership, but a kind of partnership and a kind of networking. We are still building our networking and working together with other CS organizations and also for especially for advocacy. Yeah, so that is one thing. And it's the way we stay value on partnership, and we stay fighting for the Luka and international partnership for human rights defense and your personality.

So for our personal and I'm an activist and human rights defender and also you know, social science and anthropology. And yeah, so for example, we have only partnership with us within our human rights defense groups and activists. So, partnership is very important because sometimes we need some help and we need some encouragement and we need some, you know, socialization. And that is very important for us. Because most of the human rights defenders and also activists living here, they are feeling lonely and also, their psychological, they are not going well. Yeah. So am I answer your question? If not, please repeat again. 

Anna: Yeah. No, there was already a very long answer actually to my question. I like this because what we would like to give to people who listen to this podcast is really an inside view of how the human dignity work looks like on the ground and how this notion of partnership can actually really help the human dignity work. Maybe you can give us a concrete example. something of maybe just the latest, concretes example of how you overcame a certain challenge thanks to a partnership or can you illustrate a little bit? 

Stephen: Yeah, so before talking about partnership, let me mention about dignity, human dignity. So, for Myanmar, we don't have human dignity, and we lost our dignity and we also lost our identity. And you know, let me go to the partnership and it is a great challenge for us for regarding partnership. So and individually, it is difficult situations, and we cannot have new friends. and new areas and also a new society because you know living in Thailand is not you know it's like you know we cannot go to the public and also we need to avoid that kind of thing we need to avoid the first labor we don't go to the first labor and also when we use Facebook so it's very difficult for us to turn on the public mood so and yeah It is a challenge for us. 

For CSO, so let me talk about CSO. Within the CSO, we already have partnership with other CSO who are in HCI. not inside the country but outside the country so we had a good partnership and we now in 2024 we started celebration human rights days and also, we invite many CSO and we celebrate in Germany, but we are worried a lot for our safety and security yeah. 

Anna: Even now that you are in exile?

Stephen: Yeah. So, I think thank you. So, I think you need to ask me your question with simple English, not academyic language. And I'm so worried that I'm not answering your question.

Anna: Yeah. You are doing really well. Don't worry. Everything is good. I am curious, what would you advise to others who could find themselves in your position? What would be the best way? For others to deal with the situation, both as a person, but also as an organization? 

Stephen: It's for persons, so I think, because I will be different from other human rights defenders, because I brought my family in Chiang Mai, and I sold out all my property in Myanmar, so since 2021, and I am living in Thailand with my wife and a son but it is very difficult for me and my son and my wife because we you know we cannot afford my son education here in Thailand because it is very expensive that is why so, but I am trying to find another way, an alternative way and I tried to find online English class for my son and also other cheaper education system in Bangkok and a kind of predicate and other trainings for my son. And yeah, my wife, she doesn't have any job, so she only lives in the house and waiting for me when I go to the office and walk in so and the life is not easy yeah, but you know we cannot stop here, and we cannot complain our life and because we are fighting for human rights defend for human rights and also You know, we are the voice and we need to amplify the voice of the people in Myanmar who cannot, who are facing difficult situations.

And yeah, for me, I'm also a researcher and I see different ways from other people and other human rights defenders. But I just want to, you know bring their experience and writing something and also sharing to the Indonesian community. So that is why I can do that. And there is individually and individual experience. So for the organization.  I think it is very difficult for now. Because of DL and USA Gram, it's cut out a lot of projects in our organization and also all the organization in Chiang Mai and CSO in Myanmar who live in Chiang Mai and Thailand. 

Anna: So, we had a lot of CSO here, they are facing very difficult situations. I think I have to interview again. on the topic of how human rights organizations do in exile in general, because there are so many there, not only in Chiang Mai, but also in other countries, right? And from other countries. And I think there's a lot to explore how these organizations can actually cooperate with other and learn from each other. It was very moving to talk to you, Stephen, actually. And we will definitely broadcast

this. And I hope we will get a lot of reactions from our audience. And who knows? Wherever a door closes, there is a new door that opens up again. We can just hope for this. And that brings me to my very last question, actually, because we are coming to the end. of this podcast, usually we only have 10 to 15 minutes, and we are already a little bit over time. but my last question is maybe a personal one. Because at the Phoenix Initiative, we are fully convinced by the unbeatable power of dream. So what is your biggest dream? Do you want to share your biggest dream with us? 

Stephen: Yes. Yeah, so that is a great opportunity for me. Let me share about my bigger dreams. And I want my country, not for me, not for my family first. I want my countries and also indigenous people and also the people from lowland Myanmar. And all the people from Myanmar. And I don't have any boundaries, religious boundary. I don't have politics boundary. But yeah, so I just want to say all the people in Myanmar. And also, I just want to include all the people in Myanmar to have peaceful situations and peaceful family and peaceful society and community in Myanmar because we are living under the military counter force over seven decades and we witness human rights violations and instead of using we so let me say I so I have a very bad situation. I have a very bad experience that

human rights and also military hunters and their forces are killing the people and also beating the people and torture the people because I can say that because I had that kind of experience I was one of them and my biggest dream is I want to study and I want to finish my PhD and I want

to work for my community and it means all the community in Myanmar so for human rights education and I want them to know about their rights and talking about address about their rights and human rights education, we don't have human rights education in Myanmar, and we don't know how to address our problem where we can address our problems so we don't know that that is why I just want to be a kind of a volunteers or medians for the community and international governments or international community and the people and bring their voice to them and you know, but that is very important. So peace, education and human rights. Yeah, that's all and development.

Anna: There's no better way. to close this podcast, Stephen. Thank you so much for having been with us. I hope that we can talk again, maybe in another episode. And I hope that our audience enjoyed this podcast as much as I did now talk to you. So thank you so much, Stephen.