"It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a tribe to defend a human right."

The Phoenix Initiative for Human Dignity is a collaborative platform to support civil society organizations, informal groups, and movements working on the rule of law, human rights, democracy, and justice in building resilient and healthy organizational structures. 

Local grassroots organizations and individual human rights defenders are the backbone of each society that values human dignity. These organizations and individuals are the ones who will continuously promote and protect human rights and dignity, regardless of any societal changes, conflicts or other challenges that restrict our fundamental freedoms.  

While human rights defenders have today understood the value of cooperation and partnership to move the state of human rights forward, the organizational management of most is an act in silo, leaving the senior management to itself to find the best ways and strategies to build robust organizational structures. Acknowledging that there are already numerous resources available in the field of organizational development, many do not take into account the specific needs and characteristics of grassroots human rights work. Others are simply not easy to access, or hard to find. Resources have often been developed in the Western world, and more often than not, are simply too complex and/or not cost-effective enough to be of use to grassroots organizations, or are only available in English. Those from the Global South (Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Asia Pacific, and South Korea are far too unknown. 

In addition, in a world globally affected by the continuing shrinking space for civic engagement and human rights, local actors in restrictive countries have gained extensive experience and found elaborated ways to promote and uphold human rights. While there is an encouraging tendency today to acknowledge such knowledge, learning from the Global South is still the exception in the Global West.

The Phoenix Initiative will close this gap by building a safe space for human rights defenders, civil society organizations, informal groups, and movements working on the rule of law, human rights, democracy, and justice to learn from each other's challenges and opportunities. 

The PHOENIX is a legendary, powerful, and giant bird that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. In mythology, many powers are attributed to the phoenix, such as immortality, invulnerability, and healing. For us, it symbolizes the strength and courage of human dignity defenders and civil society organizations to never give up, and to always find a way to defend and promote human dignity, even in the darkest times. 

An INITIATIVE is the ability to assess and initiate things independently, and the power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do. Many successful human dignity organizations were born because somebody was concerned, and took initiative. It is thanks to the person behind the organization, and the people within the organization, that we can today better enjoy the fulfillment of our universal rights. 

We are using the term HUMAN DIGNITY because human beings possess a special value intrinsic to their humanity and as such are worthy of respect simply because they are humans. The rule of law, human rights, democracy, and justice are the main guarantors of everybody's dignity if well established and applied for the benefit of all members of the society.