With our activities focused on well-being, we aim to help rights advocacy organizations and activists improve and protect their well-being. While working towards broadening the concept of well-being, we also highlight an area of solidarity, that is, organizational efforts that address individuals’ need for well-being at the organizational level, can be improved through structural adjustments, open to cultural change, create relationships that can contribute to well-being, and advocate for change.
In a political culture where activism is often associated with struggle and hardship, expressing the need for well-being and the recognition of this need as “right” by rights advocates can sometimes be frowned upon. Therefore, we advocate for the importance of remembering the rights perspective while discussing well-being. We strongly believe in the transformation of the well-being approach into a more comprehensive policy domain.
As part of our well-being activities, we work towards shifting from an individual-oriented well-being approach to establishing more comprehensive and inclusive approaches in organizations. We try to avoid reproducing the approach that imposes the responsibility for well-being on individuals. What sustains well-being is to find ways to share the responsibility of maintaining activism, collaborating, and well-being, which is imposed on individuals by the system, within organizations. Therefore, we engage in organizational well-being activities.
In 2022, we worked with 8 organizations in our Online Organizational Well-Being Workshops which aim to develop a policy aimed at well-being and encourage rights advocacy organizations to prioritize organizational well-being on their agendas. We published a Handbook for Organizational Well-Being which includes fundamental insights about well-being and examples of activities done by certain organizations to develop a comprehensive well-being approach.
We continue to conduct research and produce sources in the field of organizational well-being to spread knowledge and organize workshops that help organizations develop well-being policies.
“We have drafted a well-being policy. We’ve lit a fire, you know? I feel like I am sharing the responsibility for organizing, during which I will feel safer and more peaceful.”
“I've realized there are many different areas where I can improve my well-being. Moreover, my confidence in our organization's ability to provide well-being has grown, which has contributed to happiness within this practice of organizing.”
