Visibility for Protection Calendars
The Visibility for Protection calendar project seeks to increase visibility of HRDs through illustrations depicting the work, stories and/or profiles of HRDs through calendars which can be printed or used digitally. They are created in collaboration between HRDs and a local artist, and the focus of the calendars are guided by Front Line Defenders Protection Coodinators who are regionally based. The calendars frequently feature communities or groups of HRDs who are dealing with particular risks and threats in relation to visibility; such as public defamations, slander, delegitimization, etc.
They are a great tool for visibility as they provide public legitimacy and allow HRDs to share their struggles and gain acklowedgement of their work in a creative way, countering negative narratives which may have been created against them. HRDs can choose to highlight significant days on the calendar to celebrate their wins, losses, and other significant events related to their work. They are distributed to various communities, networks, advocacy targetes, family, and friends.
2023:
In this calendar, 12 WHRDs relate some of their most vulnerable experiences, including being forcibly disappeared, arrested, tortured, criminalised, surveilled, slandered and harassed online. Every month serves as a reminder of the truth revealed in their amazing work, but also the terrible reprisals they have had to endure in online and physical spaces.
These inspiring women have daringly shared their stories with us from their own perspective, which artist and illustrator Lena Merhaj and designer Maya Chami have delightfully transformed into artistic works created to honour and celebrate them.From our profound respect and admiration, we hope this calendar contributes to the recognition of their work and the fulfillment of their protection.
2023:
The Xochimilco calendar served as a narrative exercise and a tribute to the sublime communal defense of Xochimilco and San Gregorio Atlapulco. We have heard the defenders' experiences. One of the original villages of Mexico City's Xochimilco mayor's office is San Gregorio Atlapulco, since the pre-Hispanic era, it has been a significant location for the cultivation of medicinal plants and vegetables, as well as for the special significance of its wetlands and the use of chinampas for agricultural purposes.It continues to be a peculiar and distinctive natural habitat in Mexico City's southern region.
Despite the richness of its nature and culture, it is constantly in danger from exploitation and pressures from the governmental and corporate sectors that aim to rob its residents of their resources, including the water, soil, and agricultural potential of the region. This calendar helps create visibility, protect, and stand in solidarity with those who defend human rights and work for the welfare of all.
2023:
The calendar “Women who Dare in West and Central Africa” features 12 amazing women from different countries in the region. We honor and celebrate each one of them in their struggle including both expressions of pride in women’s achievements and also candid assessments about the difficulties they faced within the movement. Some of the women human Rights defenders in the calendar have been working for more than 2 decades, and over the years they have established their own organizations, won international awards for good governance, democracy, and elections, and many of them have been recognized at national, regional and global levels for their dedication in promoting rights of women in their diversity proving that their efforts were not in vain.
2022:
This calendar, carried out in partnership with the commune of Barranquilla San Javier, Estudio Plumbago and Acción Ecológica, was intended to honour and make visible the work of community defence and the biodiversity of the Chocó Pacífico forest carried out by the community of Barranquilla. The calendar ilustrates it as a multi-national territory, populated by peasant and Afro indigenous populations, who have inhabited the mega-diverse forest of the Chocó Pacífico. Acción Ecológica is an Ecuadorian organisation with more than 30 years. A period of time in which their actions and words have been combined in a key of resistance together with communities and peoples to defend the territories threatened by the advance of extractivism, agribusiness, the commodification of nature, the construction of dams, hydroelectric and refineries.
Barranquilla de San Javier is located on the banks of the Cachavi River. This village was established during this time it has developed strong links with the forest and the river. This is an agricultural community with a culture rooted in its own traditions, originating in the African diaspora and the dynamics of Latin America. The community achieved recognition of its territory by the state in the year 2000, when they obtained legal title to 1,450 hectares as their community territory. However, soon after, palm oil companies began an aggressive process of appropriation of community lands in order to extract tropical wood and later use the land for oil palm plantations. Based on this knowledge, the Community and its board of directors begun to ask the company to respect their collective rights, to respect the environmental rights of the commune, and the rights of the Chocó Forest. From our deep respect and admiration, this caledar was put in place to contribute to the recognition of their struggle and their rights.
2021:
Longing how much I miss the absence of people, how much I want to be among them, the murmur that is produced in the hope of victory, the desperate cry of one more day, that pain in the heart tears the conflicting feelings and, the people, people come together to acclaim the triumph, there are spaces in time where they talk, agree, reach an understanding, but everything becomes uncertain, there are faces, some with joy, others with sadness and others with the hope of seeing a better future for girls and boys, young people and people in general. Little by little a change is glimpsed, which with the effort of all is taking place, because there was never the discouragement of those people who put their minds and hearts above everyone and everything to fight for well-being. of a town, which had always been trampled on by those who believed themselves irreplaceable. Today history is changing and is gradually giving them the reason, it was not foolishness, nor was it whim, it was simply weariness and arrogance that caused the awakening of these people who had been humiliated. That is why we should feel proud and proud to be part of this movement that little by little is walking towards the development and well-being of its inhabitants. We were victims of the uncertainty of the people, our pride and our physical integrity were trampled on by ill-intentioned people, but nothing and no one has changed the goal and the objective set, we walked to the sound of the demands, we were always where we should be.
I am the rebellion against oblivion, the face of poverty,the presence of the excluded, I am the collective memory,“the other way of naming tomorrow”. Illustrated poem in the month of December
2021:
The community of Zacacuautla features a community of HRDs fighting against deforestation for over 30 years. Neighbours of Zacacuautla are concerned about the future of the forest, the water and the life of the community, organised under the name of El Ocotenco, fought and managed to pressure PROFEPA to annul the permits when finding several irregularities in the uses. Of the fifty-five threatened hectares, they were only able to cut down six to eight, at the same time that they were using the exploitations, they were also cutting down clandestinely in other places.
The members of El Ocotenco realized the seriousness of this because it threatened not only wildlife at the time, but the community's water now and for future generations. It is for this reason they decided to organize to fight against the logging led by the Canals and also against other clandestine loggers. The Reforestation Committee in which the majority of the inhabitants of Zacacuautla participates so that the descendants do not suffer due to lack of water, as well as take care of all the mountains of our town, so that clandestine loggers do not continue to end lives.
