Published April 2022

You have access to and can view ALL of the content materials in this course without a Canvas account.

Promoting Restoration and Capacity Building for Human Rights Investigators is a project funded by the New Venture Fund, Public Interest Technology Network, under the direction of UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley. As the terrain for human rights challenges move online, this well-being toolkit is meant to equip investigators, from early career to long-time ones, with the key strategies for sustenance.

Drawing inspiration by human rights investigators around the world and our students at the Human Rights Investigations Labs at UC Santa Cruz's Research Center for the Americas and at UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center, School of Law, we have a shared vision that people's mental and physical well-being is of critical importance to capacity building for human rights work. Seeking to counter a culture of over-work and exhaustion, this restoration toolkit serves as a reminder that slowing down is to our collective benefit.

Learn more about our research labs by visiting our websites at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley.

This project is our contribution to a world that simultaneously advances human rights and each other's capacity to contribute to a better world.

Structured as an online and accessible Toolkit, the information contained here stresses restoration and slowing down. A set of core values guide this overall work: equality, well-being, healing, compassion, and empathy. This digital Toolkit provides four (4) units that contain a variety of topics and guided practices to help immediately bring more balance to your nervous system, enhance well-being and affirm a mindset of resilience and hope. Each unit is self-contained, offering an accompanying Facilitator's Guide to promote community care. These activities can be done by yourself, though we encourage large groups whenever possible to avoid the isolation found too often when working remotely or virtually.

About Nikita Gupta, Resilience Expert & Primary Author

This Toolkit is written by by Nikita Gupta, MPH, a passionate and dedicated educator and resilience expert who specializes in designing and implementing Trauma Healing and Resiliency programs and initiatives in educational as well as public and private settings. As a community leader in the field for over 24 years, Nikita’s work is rooted in practices of somatic (body-based) empowerment, social healing and community connection. She has worked with college campuses and schools for over 12 years, and is especially committed to working with helping professionals, activists, and educators in caring for themselves while caring for others. Nikita is also a long-time Yoga Teacher and Meditation Facilitator who received her Master’s in Public Health from UCLA. For inquiries about this Toolkit or for information about training, consulting or coaching, please contact Nikita Gupta at nikita@nikitagupta.com. Learn more about Nikita's work by visiting: https://linktr.ee/ngupta.

Overview of Materials

This is a digital toolkit that can be viewed online, or it can be printed out. The digital version offers embedded links to the SoundCloud Audio Page where you can find guided practices for grounding and restoration of well-being.

Unit 1: Reducing Secondary Trauma through Grounding Practices
Unit 2: Self-Soothing to Ease Your Nervous System
Unit 3: Honoring your Purpose and Releasing Excess Urgency
Unit 4: Alleviating Isolation and Fostering Community Care

About UC Santa Cruz Student Project Collaborators

The student collaborators met regularly with Nikita Gupta to provide input, feedback, and overall project support on the design of the Toolkit. The students also piloted early versions of the Units before assisting with the finalizing of the content.

Monica Mikhail is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz and has been a graduate student researcher in the Human Rights Investigations Lab since Fall 2020. Her dissertation is titled "‘Forget Bolivia, Remember God’: Ethical Entanglements of Faith, Belonging and Care within the Bolivian Coptic Orthodox Church." She began working with Nikita Gupta in September 2021 for this project along with Sydney Eliot.
Sydney Eliot is a fourth year undergraduate student at UC Santa Cruz majoring in Politics and is the Chief of Staff to the UCSC Student Body President. She has been a member of the HRI Lab for three years and grew up in Venice, California.
Sophia Smith is a fourth year undergraduate student at UC Santa Cruz majoring in Psychology and Legal Studies. She grew up in Los Angeles an joined the HRI Lab team in Fall 2021. She joined the team for this project in January 2022.

Communication

We would welcome hearing how you're using these modules in your work. Feel free to complete this short survey or email us at hrlab@ucsc.edu.

About Principal Faculty Collaborators of the Public Interest Technology Challenge Grant

Professor Sylvanna Falcón is the Director of the Research Center for the Americas and an Associate Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the founder/director of UC Santa Cruz's Human Rights Investigations Lab.

Professor Alexa Koenig is the Executive Director of the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley, School of Law and an adjunct faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Law. She is the co-founder of UC Berkeley's Human Rights Investigations Lab.