Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies (CHRHS)

CHRHS Training Seed Grants

CHRHS annually funds training initiatives through our Seed Grant program. These grants go towards the development of new curriculum, workshops, and simulation-based learning, both within existing institutions and as a kick-starter for independent initiatives.

Mass casualty training for prehospital and emergency providers in Kigali, Rwanda

Rwanda experiences a combination of both natural and man-made disasters. However, there has been little training to help the medical system prepare and address these disasters. The goal of this training is to teach skills critical to responding to mass casualty incidents (MCI) to first responders, prehospital providers and hospital personnel. The course will be taught to members of Healthy Persons Rwanda, SAMU (EMS system) and Rwanda Emergency Care Association (RECA). Members of RECA include paramedics, nursing staff, and physicians that participate in emergency care.

Refugee Health Services

Developing a Pre-Clerkship Elective Course in Humanitarian Medicine and Refugee Health for the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University
It is becoming increasingly important for medical professionals to become competent in caring for refugees and understanding the unique challenges that this population faces. An introductory course to will be helpd on humanitarian medicine and refugee health for medical students in their first year of training. The course will be presented as a mix of lecture-based content as well as a service-learning opportunity. Topics will include humanitarian law and standards, refugee camp health, the resettlement process, local refugee services, social determinants of health and barriers to health care in the US, and mental health. The lecture-based content will be provided by guest speakers with a good understanding of the topics proposed. For the service-learning portion, each medical student will be paired with a refugee family. This partnership will allow the student to learn from the experiences of their host family while they simultaneously serve as a health care advocate for the family. They will help the family navigate the medical system and serve as a support person in any medical emergency. 

Governing Compound Disasters in Southeast Asia: Writing Workshop for Publication

The writing workshop (writeshop) is envisioned to gather scholars working in the Southeast Asian Region to develop manuscripts exploring the governance of compound disasters in the region with specific focus on the management of the pandemic alongside environmentally related hazards.

The Human Element of AI for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response

AI can play an important role in weather-related Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR), especially with regard to coordination and logistics. To ensure AI’s success on such use cases, it is critical to consider its human element. This two-day virtual seminar and conference will bring together people from academia, governments, the military, NGOs, and the technology sector to inform them with practical knowledge about the application of AI to HADR coordination and logistics, with a special focus on its human element.

Climate Change Training workshop for Rural women Leaders in Rivers State, Nigeria

This training workshop will bring together roughly 30 leaders of rural women community-based associations in Rivers State, Nigeria with the goal of increasing climate change knowledge and capacity of rural women leaders in Rivers State and contribute to closing the knowledge gap between rural men and women in agriculture. Research have shown that women constitute majority in the farming population yet are excluded from basic farm information and resources thus creating knowledge gap.

Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice: Campus Organizer Training

This training initiative will support the creation of an interactive training for Campus Organizers to learn how to develop and maintain Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice (SCIJ) programs, as well as hand off programs to successors. This project will improve SCIJ’s organizational continuity and allow them to grow their impact across the country while supporting existing programs. This training program will provide Campus Organizers with the tools to be successful in their positions and ensure continuity between Campus Organizers year-to-year.

Health and Wellbeing in Humanitarian Action

This workshop introduces a comprehensive curriculum that covers all the basics of what constitutes the humanitarian sector, key principles, main actors and mechanisms, with a particular focus on health and wellbeing concepts and programing in humanitarian settings. The workshop will be conducted in Arabic, with some of the sessions hosted by academics in the Humanitarian health field to be streamed online.

Omena Peer Education Training: An Initiative to Break the Cycle of Emotional Abuse in Madagascar

Omena is an initiative that promotes Social Emotional Learning to break the cycle of emotional abuse within families and communities through awareness and education. The project's education component begins with 2-day training sessions for peer educators who learn the mission and model for the Omena program and how to recognize signs and psychological outcomes of emotional abuse. This training will also teach these volunteers how to use the appropriate content and conversation to effectively facilitate Omena teaching programs in their schools, community organizations, and homes.

Health workers in Rwanda training program

A Training of Trainers Course for Hemorrhage Control in Traumatic Injury

Traumatic injury is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in low- and middle income countries (LMICs), including Rwanda. The goal of this training is to reduce trauma-related morbidity and mortality by teaching basic skills in hemorrhage control. Content will be drawn from STOP THE BLEED, an educational course developed by the American College of Surgeons (ACS). This training will serve as a training of trainers. As such, participants can serve as instructors in future training sessions. The course will be taught to members of the Rwanda Emergency Care Association (RECA).

Nepal Journathon on COVID-19 flyer

Nepal Journathon on COVID-19: Collaboration between journalists, health professionals, and computer experts

Nepal Journathon is a one-day virtual hackathon where journalists, coders, health professionals, and others will work together to produce, invent, or discover solutions to the challenges they are facing while responding to the pandemic. Nepal Journathon on COVID-19 will explore some of the challenges faced by journalists and health professionals during the pandemic and other emergencies. They will work together to find solutions to these problems.

Participants in Ugandan training group

Promoting Children’s Rights within the Community

This three-day workshop will be carried out in Ugandan communities as a means to equip community leaders with coaching skills to sustain Children’s Rights initiatives, development, and growth. The programme will include demonstration of coaching activities, role-playing, exercise and will require participants to set clear coaching action plans from the beginning to the end of the process. Recipients of the training will go on to train other members within their communities and neighboring communities

Refugee Dream center staff in training program

Breaking Barriers Seminar - Refugee Dream Center

Breaking Barriers is a culturally attuned intervention project focused on the facilitation and capacity building of the refugees’ ability to overcome the challenges associated with their experiences of crime. This seminar brought Refugee Dream Center staff, 8 community leaders, and members of the local community together, sucessfully building relationships among the staff, trainees and the local community in an engaging and celebratory way prior to the official start of the training program. More >

Participants in training model

Managing Innovation - The Future of Humanitarian Aid

This training module aims to enhance the understanding of key aspects in initiating, organizing, and managing innovation in the humanitarian sector. The contents of this training module will include key concepts, why innovation, drivers and types of innovations, process of innovation, and challenges to humanitarian innovation. The module is intended to be used to raise awareness among the members of the maker society who are keen to contribute the humanitarian sector. More >

North Darfur map

Strengthening Partnerships and Capacities of National Actors

This one-day roundtable discussion in North Darfur State, Sudan focused on Strengthening Partnerships and Capacities of National Actors. It targeted 16 policy makers, programmers, and the most active national NGOs in North Darfur State. The event was designed to be a participatory and instructive roundtable discussion with the primary objective of strengthening the national capacities to understand and manage crises and become more resilient to shocks. More >

Image of mobile phone for data collection

Electronic Data Collection in Humanitarian Response

This program trained representatives from the Chiredzi and Mwenezi district government departments, project staff, and other stakeholders in electronic data collection during humanitarian interventions. The trainings, which ran in March 2018 leveraged existing expertise, resources, and relationships with district stakeholders and Midland State University. More >

Participants in Humanitarian essentials for youth training

Humanitarian Essentials for Youth

This project developed an awareness training module on “Humanitarian essentials for youth”. The module content is of global context and based on the key humanitarian skills required, for youth when demanded to volunteer in a humanitarian crisis. More >