This spring Rethinking Security and Northern Friends Peace Board, are running an online course at Woodbrooke, the UK’s Quaker learning and research organisation, to explore the vision and practice of human security.
If you’ve ever wanted to look in more depth at what human security is and how it is and can be achieved then why not sign up? The course opens on Thursday 24 Feb, giving you access to resources and information, ahead of the first live session on Monday 28 Feb. There are 4 live sessions each Monday evening, and an optional 5th on 28 March for research training at the end of the course.
Throughout the course, tutors and guest speakers will explore the concept of human security with you and the need to ‘rethink security’. It will help you articulate the connections between different issues of peace and justice. Combining values, theory, stories, group work and research training, it will probe what different approaches, issues and people need to be included in order to achieve human and ecological security.
You will be encouraged to think about our global, national and local security contexts, and as a result of taking part in the course we hope that participants will come away with:
- A clear understanding of the concept and practice of human security as an alternative to military ‘security’
- Knowledge of the UK’s current security priorities and the theories and principles that guide them
- Ideas and strategies for promoting and implementing human security in your own context
- Skills for research and evidence gathering to support change
Towards the end of the course we will look into the possibilities for taking part in some of the evidence building for the Alternative Security Review. The research skills we will cover can be used directly for the ASR or simply to open up dialogue in your local area, or other groups you work with, on the ways in which people experience security and insecurity in the UK.
The aim of the Alternative Security Review is to take a bottom up and inclusive approach to understanding the security needs and concerns of the public in the UK, many of whom are never included in the kinds of policies the government develops. Indeed, some people find themselves targets of security policy. We want to equip you with the tools to gather evidence and opinions that need to be heard in a security context.
The need to rethink security has never been more urgent as we stumble through crises at home and internationally. We hope you will join us to consider the changes that are needed and what you can do to make change happen.
