CIVIL SOCIETY
Local partners in Guinea during a GIJTR capacity- building workshop in Conakry.
Participants in a GIJTR training on digital archiving for civil society organizations.
Through direct financial and programmatic support to participants, GIJTR catalyzes grassroots projects that provide hands-on training for new cadres of civil society actors, resulting in dynamic new initiatives that directly serve the needs of previously marginalized communities affected by conflict. To date, GIJTR has supported over 500 such projects, including software to support the identification of victims, dialogues with refugees about justice and accountability and public performances aimed at preventing recurrences of violence. These projects initially serve as proof of concept for untested ideas that—once developed with robust support and seed funding from GIJTR—effectively attract new funding and are positioned for sustained impact in the long term.
Through its robust, gender-focused documentation efforts, which center on training local documenters, who are often survivors themselves, to collect other survivors’ testimonies, GIJTR ensures that the experiences of historically marginalized groups, including women and racial and ethnic minorities, are preserved in the public record and accessible for future accountability purposes even during times of active conflict. This use of local documenters, who are generally more trusted in their communities than international actors, results in more accurate and detailed testimonies that ensures often overlooked violations, including conflict-related sexual violence, are addressed and that victims receive mental health and psychosocial services so they can begin to heal.
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From the Ground Up GIJTR’s Impact: Civil Society
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