Health and Human Rights Info

We are proud to present our new and improved site to you. Health and Human Rights Info aims at making professional experiences and resources more easily accessible to health professionals working with people exposed to human rights abuses, armed conflict, forced migration and other human rights violations. A wide range of important material such as guidelines, manuals, intervention programs and tools for assessment and intervention has been developed over the years. Much of this is already available on the internet, while some material has not been accessible until now. However this material represents highly valuable information in the daily work with survivors of human rights violations, displacement, violence and disasters. Our hope is that through a careful editing of the material and through a process of reviewing by our reference group we are able to have a continuous updating and development of the database, and remove material that is not relevant or not up to standard.

We also welcome any response from users of the web site. Feedback can be send to us by postmaster@hhri.org. Together we hope that we are able to provide you with a service that is useful in your daily work.

The Health and Human Rights Info database represents an important source of information within the field of health and human rights, and psychosocial intervention. We hope that it will serve the good purpose of inspiration and direction in a working context often characterized by strong needs, stress and lack of resources. We also hope that it can be a useful tool in training and supervising personnel active in the field. For your convenience we have added thematic pages. On these pages we have gathered selective information essential to the different topics. The topics have been chosen on the basis of their actuality, relevance and importance. We are of course particularly interested in if these thematic pages seem useful to you.

We have also added a new search field called “Phrase in description” which allows you to search in free text in the description of our links.

The main focus in the database is on mental health, psychosocial work and community support and reconstruction. Information in relation to more clearly defined medical problems will have to be found elsewhere. Nevertheless, some topics, like for instance "Torture" and "Disaster", will include information regarding somatic consequences and sequelae as well.

The project has come about thanks to a close collaboration with Mental Health Project a Norwegian NGO dedicated to training and support to health professionals working within the field of human rights violations, conflict and health. Their generous financial contribution has made this project possible. The project was initiated as an activity of International Society for Health and Human Rights (ISHHR).

I will take the opportunity again to thank the donors that made this possible, to the council of ISHHR, and to Sigurd Kraft Gulbrandsen, Magnar Naustdalslid, Caroline Garcia-Aarsæther, Igor Leon Quilquichicon and Elisabeth Ng Langdal that have contributed significantly in this process.

We will need all the help and inspiration that we may get from colleagues in developing this work further. This enables us to be a room for exchange of ideas and experiences, as well as for inspiration and support. We hope that this information project may represent a common interest – namely a strengthening of our common efforts to prevent human rights abuses, secure mental health care and assistance to survivors and fight impunity.

Sincerely yours,

Nora Sveaass, dr. psychol.
Project Director
Health and Human Rights Info