What are backyard initiatives?
Yard initiatives are active Belarusians. Belarusians who risk their freedom, health and well-being to show the regime their dissent and support all those who continue to struggle or find themselves in a difficult situation due to political repression.
What are activists and their initiatives doing now?
Every day the repression against activists only increases. The regime is very much afraid and tries to do everything to get rid of the “inconvenient”. Previously activists were detained and tried for bchb-tags on fences, flags on windows, distributing newspapers with truthful information; now activists are tried for any action — a comment, a peaceful gesture, disagreement with the war in Ukraine, helping neighbors and so on.
Activists and their initiatives are now learning, building horizontal ties between each other, organizing local interest groups, and helping the families of political prisoners. Activists are the real heroes of our time, as they continue to do their best in the situation they are in.
How do we help initiatives and activists?
1. Financial aid: We started financially supporting backyard initiatives and activists on November 20, 2020. During this time (report as of 16.02.2023), 244 initiative projects have received assistance for a total of 159093€.
2 Training: We organize online trainings on the topics of cybersecurity, personal security, law, project management, psychological health, etc. In all time we have conducted more than 25 online training sessions for activists.
3. Consulting: We advise activists and initiatives on all issues of interest to them. Activists can always write to us in our Telegram-account @bysol_help and we will try to help them with any queries.
IMPORTANT: Activists' safety is a key factor in the work of the fund: only 2 people in the fund work on applications, and we transfer funds only through cryptocurrency
Why help activists and their initiatives?
So that they can continue to express the position of Belarusians regarding the ongoing lawlessness in the country. If illegitimate authorities react so sharply to the truth, it is necessary to continue to show and tell it to all. We are grateful to people from all over the world who care, who help heroic activists to continue their struggle and express their protest by all means. The initiatives do this not for themselves, but for each and every one of us — it is our task to help them. After all, our strength is in solidarity.