Tbilisi and Batumi shelter cities and Telavi art-residence: growing resilience of HRDs in the time of global crisis Tbilisi Shelter City is a project founded in 2016 by the Center for Participation and Development (CPD) aimed to provide temporary relocation and rehabilitation for human rights defenders at risk. The program implies both a 3-month relocation to a safe place in Georgia and creating conditions for the professional development and psychological recovery of human rights defenders. It is also designed to reduce risks and help human rights defenders leave an unsafe environment for a while. During the program, the human rights defender is provided with accommodation in a safe place, receives opportunities for education and skill development, acquiring new professional contacts, and if necessary, he or she is provided with psychological and medical assistance. The project also contributes to the international advocacy effort for better protection of HRDs. The main beneficiaries of Tbilisi Shelter City are HRDs, civil activists, journalists, and cultural workers from Central Asia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and the South Caucasus. During the time of the project implementation, the program has provided the above-mentioned professional services to more than 200 HRDs and their family members. Georgia is well known as a rehab country for many HRDs that were threatened, tortured, or suffering from psychological health problems. Moreover, Georgia can offer a more comfortable environment for HRDs from the region due to their common cultural background and history. HRDs do not have to accustom to the new cultural environment when relocating here. Citizens of Central Asian states, Belarus, Russia, and other post-soviet countries do not need visas to enter Georgia, which increases the speed of relocation and makes possible emergency transfers arranged within hours. This makes the shelter in Georgia much better accessible for HRDs from the region in comparison to shelters located in the EU. At the same time, Tbilisi Shelter City is the only relocation program accepting families with children, which is a very important precondition for the relocation of female human rights defenders. 
Despite the global crisis amid the COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions, Tbilisi Shelter City not only managed to retain functioning but increased its capacity and expanded the program. In 2019 the project was branched out and opened Batumi Shelter City, and in 2020 - Telavi Shelter City.

The shelter offers two programs for the relocation of human rights defenders

    1. Short-term relocation (up to 3 months) targeted at human rights defenders with low and middle level of threats. The primary goal of the program is to strengthen the capacity of a human rights defender and prevent professional burnout. 
    2. Emergency relocation of human rights defenders under immediate threat. This program is designed for the people who are directly threatened in their home countries. This program has no defined timeline. 
In both cases the option of relocation of immediate family members (children and/or spouses) is available. The decision to relocate immediate family members with the HRD is evaluated on the case by case basis considering the following factors: imminent threats to the family members if they stay in the country in question, the age of the children, are there other family members who can take care of children while HRD is undergoing the program of temporary relocation.

Accommodation and subsistence: the Shelter is situated in Georgia and has the main facility in Tbilisi with the capacity to host up to 30 human rights defenders and with the branches in Batumi and Telavi (dedicated to the cultural workers), where up to 10 HRDs can be hosted annually. In Batumi, we house HRDs who primarily need psychological healing and rehabilitation and who come with children. In Telavi, we host cultural workers. Telavi facility is also focused on the retreats implemented upon the request of the organizations working in the region to provide rehabilitation and psychological support to human rights defenders who are living under permanent stress, but due to the peculiarities of their work cannot leave their countries for longer periods of time. 
To ensure the sustainability of the branch the shelter we negotiated the cooperation with the Human Rights Committee of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara and signed the memorandum of understanding pledging the support to the protection of HRDs.

Medical assistance: shelter has established permanent cooperation with the clinics which provide aid to the participants of the program. A special pillar of medical assistance program is provided to women human rights defenders who were exposed to sexual violence, or harassment and to HRDs recently released from prison. 
The majority of HRDs use the time in the shelter to care for their health condition. Besides medical check-up, dental care, and other ordinary medical procedures we helped people in the following complicated circumstances: mental health assistance, severe muscle-skeleton disorder, diabetes, complicated dental care/restoration after torture, hepatitis, tuberculosis, eye surgery, and other types of surgery. 

Psychological assistance: two key types of assistance are provided: work with crisis cases in narrative practice, which is suitable for post-trauma syndromes, nervous breakdowns, and panic fear; permanent psychological assistance to increase resistance level prevention of traumatization and burnout. Special attention is given to the cases of women human rights defenders building their capacity to withstand blackmail sexual harassment and in case of need to overcome the trauma after sexual assault. HRDs hosted by Shelter have individual therapy sessions and also collective workshops are provided for them.

Education: the shelter designs workshop and training programs to strengthen the professional skills of human rights defenders. Such trainings can be tailored to meet the needs of individual participants or groups of participants. The topics of workshops include but are not limited to: security, communications, advocacy, project management, impact evaluation. Participants will be also able to develop their soft skills through the following trainings: leadership, public speaking, language classes (English), driving courses. The workshops are conducted by experts from the leading NGOs from Georgia and Ukraine. 

Monitoring and evaluation: 
There are regular evaluations conducted every three months after the group of HRDs leaves and fills in evaluation forms. The participants fill in an anonymous online survey evaluating the impact of the project and the level of satisfaction with training, counseling, and other services. The survey is developed to collect gender-specific data and information. In parallel, the team of the Shelter conducts self-evaluation tracking the progress towards the achievement of the project goals. The previous participants of the program clearly complemented the holistic approach of the program in regards to their psychological care and the facilitation of medical treatments. They stated the extensive need and ongoing continuation of such a program.  

Application process:
The application process to the Tbilisi Shelter City is open to the public. The announcement is placed on social media and shared by partner organizations and through mailing lists. After the applications are received they undergo a thorough selection and vetting process. The first selection is done by the shelter staff. Shortlisted candidates are shared with the Steering Committee comprised of the key human rights organizations in Central Asia and Russia. In the case of doubt or contradicting information on an applicant Tbilisi Shelter City seeks advisory opinion from international organizations working in the region (Frontline Defenders, Freedom House, People in Need, etc).
Tbilisi Shelter City program enjoys the support of reputable donors such as the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands to Georgia, the German Federal Foreign Office, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), German Marshall Fund of the United States. 

In November 2020 with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Georgia CPD started to implement the two-year project “Tbilisi and Batumi shelter cities and Telavi art-residence: growing resilience of HRDs in the time of global crisis” aimed at enhancing the relocation services provided by Tbilisi and Batumi Shelter Cities and Telavi art-residence to the human rights defenders from Central Asia, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus, Eastern Europe, and the Balkan region. The intended project objectives are as follows: 

    • Organize relocation of the human rights defenders under the threat to the safe space. 
    • Provide conditions for physical and psychological rehabilitation of human rights defenders. 
    • Strengthen the capacity of human rights defenders through comprehensive security trainings including IT and physical security as well as in-depth trainings in project management, advocacy, communication, or devoted to a particular set of rights.
    • Improve the resilience of human rights defenders from target countries.
    • Contribute to the advocacy efforts for the better protection of human rights defenders from target countries.

Starting in November 2020 until August 2021 all stated objectives were achieved. Due to the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent travel restriction and emergency measures, in the aforementioned period, we conducted 2 open calls for applications to the Tbilisi Shelter City program and provided selected HRDs with all mentioned as the objectives services - relocation, rehabilitation, and skills development. In addition to the Tbilisi Shelter City program, we conducted 2 open calls for our BY_Rehab program that is especially designed for Belarusian HRDs. BY_Rehab provided selected HRDs as well with all mentioned services - relocation, rehabilitation, and skills development. The progress was measured through the feedback and evaluation forms filled in by HRDs periodically during their stay and at the end of the 3 months program. The evaluation forms demonstrate a high degree of satisfaction with the services provided. Particularly the HRDs single out psychological assistance and medical assistance. The evaluation and feedback forms served as a good channel of information. Based on the received feedback the Shelter team introduced the changes to the training program as well as did some adjustments in the case management. Furthermore, we implemented a special Kyrgyz project where a group of Kyrgyz HRDs arrived for a 2-month retreat. The services provided include relocation, rehabilitation, and skill development as well. A total of 38 HRDs (9 from all over our target regions, 22 from Belarus due to the unprecedented crisis (co-funded by German Marshall Fund and German Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and 7 from Kyrgyzstan due to a less unprecedented crisis that was co-funded by National Endowment for Democracy). It has to be mentioned that just at the end of the reporting period, we finalized the selection process for our new participants. 12 HRDs were selected - 4 from Kyrgyzstan, 3 from Russian Federation, 2 from Tajikistan, 2 from Ukraine, and 1 from Uzbekistan. 

Outputs stated in the project: 

    • Strengthened security of HRDs participating in the program through the development of comprehensive individually tailored security plans;
    • Decreased level of stress and vulnerability of HRDs as the result of psychological counseling and consultations - a total of 171 hours;
    • Improved network of international professional and media contacts of HRDs participants of the program; With our support, HRDs were able to secure funds from National Endowment for Democracy, Frontline Defenders, Protect Defenders, and OSI for their future projects. Furthermore, they are happy to be able to network with different local NGOs and media outlets in Georgia - BILIKI, OC Media, Women’s Informational Center, Human Rights House, Radio Liberty, and Tbilisi Pride.
The impact of the project is in sustained human rights activism in the Central Asia region, Russia (especially North Caucasus), Belarus, and Crimea achieved through increased resilience of human rights defenders and their strengthened capacity. The project improved the security of HRDs in the region as they know that in case of urgency they can be supported and relocated to safety, as well as enabled HRDs to perform their activity better after they receive professional psychological support. If before HRDs had to deal with their burnout, psychological or medical problems on their own, now they know that asking for help is normal and there is a place where such help can be provided. As a result, more HRDs are able to perform their work sustainably. This strengthens their work for others and improves the human rights situation in the region. Project Sustainability: 

The team of Tbilisi Shelter City sees the sustainability of the achievements of the project in the consistent, systemic, and durable provision of relocation and rehabilitation services to HRDs. The impact on a particular recipient has both durable and temporary components. New skills and knowledge gained through training, a stronger network of international contacts, as well as techniques of psychological health protection represent the sustainable impact of the project – it will remain with the HRD and will serve him/her after return from the Shelter. However, if an HRD returns to a highly stressful environment and doesn’t receive any support on a day-to-day basis it is possible that after some period of time she/he will need the rehabilitation course again. This doesn’t mean that the Shelter's achievements are not sustainable but that the services project provides need to be received periodically.
On a more general level, however, we believe the achievements of Tbilisi Shelter City are sustainable if the services of the Shelter are provided consistently to the HRDs of the region. The only systematic effort, development of the culture of caring about psychological health can resolve the existing problem of HRDs burn-out and traumatization. In this sense, the TSC team believes significant effort has been made to establish the program and demonstrate its efficiency. Currently, we believe the sustainability of the program is ensured by the support of the donors and the prospects of further development of the capacity of the Shelter.
To further the sustainability of the project, we focused on 3 additional points during the reporting period. One is the financial health of the organization. We hired a new financial officer to undertake the following changes. It is not required by Georgian law to have a financial audit. Nevertheless, in order to be sustainable, our financial officer is preparing all the documentation needed for an audit in 2022. 
Another being an impact evaluation. In June 2021, we announced an open call for conducting an impact evaluation of the Tbilisi Shelter City project, which will be completed by the end of October. The main purpose of the project impact evaluation is to support the continuous improvement of the efficiency and capacity of services provided. It is also very important to us to identify the unintended impact and possible weak points where project estimates were not met.
The Impact evaluation is intended to be used by the project management in order to ensure service improvement. We will also provide access to the main findings of the impact evaluations to the donors and main stakeholders.
And the 3rd point is further fundraising. During the reporting period, we started negotiations with the Sigrid Rausing Trust. The outcome of these negotiations will be seen during the next reporting period.