Part 2: protection that sustains collective resilience
Effective protection takes more than identifying threats and putting security measures in place. It requires an understanding of how risk affects people, relationships, organisations, and movements, and what they need to keep working under pressure.
In the first instalment of this series, we explored why protection must be grounded in local knowledge, trust, context, and shared power. But locally led protection cannot mean leaving defenders to shoulder responsibility for their own safety. Defenders and movements need access to specialist support, cultures of care, and collective approaches that recognise how interconnected their risks are.
Read part 1 of the series: protection starts with people
These are the next four lessons from our 15 years of work at Open Briefing.
7. DEFENDERS SHOULDN’T HAVE TO BECOME THEIR OWN PROTECTION SPECIALISTS
Activists, journalists, community organisers, and litigators should not have to become specialists in protection, digital security, or collective wellbeing simply because their work puts them at risk.
Our role is not to make people self-sufficient in every aspect of protection. It is to help strengthen their capacity to navigate risk and connect them with the right expertise when they need it. That support must also be practical, accessible, and responsive to the realities and resources of those receiving it.
Local leadership should shape how protection is organised and delivered, but this must not mean shifting responsibility for protection onto those facing the risks. Building and sustaining this protection infrastructure is a shared responsibility. Protection organisations, funders, philanthropy networks, and specialist providers all have a role in creating the conditions for defenders and movements to work safely and sustainably. The drive for locally led protection is essential, but expecting movements and communities to protect themselves is not the same thing – and cannot be enough on its own.
8. CARE IS STRATEGIC
Wellbeing and care have often been treated as optional extras – something to consider once the “real work” is done. Our experience tells us the opposite.
People leading change under pressure can carry prolonged stress, fear, exhaustion, and grief alongside the more visible risks they face. Over time, these pressures can affect not only individuals, but also exhaust relationships, weaken organisations, fracture communities, and undermine entire movements.
Care needs to be part of protection from the beginning. It is about more than responding when someone reaches crisis point. Healing-centred approaches can help people restore agency, replenish energy, strengthen relationships, and reconnect with a sense of purpose and hope.
Reflecting on our work with a human rights defender from Burundi, our protection and security consultant Molly Rose Freeman Cyr explained:
“Sometimes the first step is helping someone stabilise and reduce stress before planning next actions. In this case, the wellbeing support was an important complement to safety and security work.”
Collective care matters too. When organisations and movements create cultures where people can rest, recover, and support one another, they help ensure that wellbeing is a shared responsibility rather than an individual burden..
9. PROTECTION IS COLLECTIVE
Defenders rarely face risk in isolation. Their families, colleagues, organisations, communities, and movements are often part of both the risk and the response. A threat to one person can affect an entire organisation; pressure on an organisation can weaken a wider movement, and the strength of a movement depends in part on the relationships and systems that hold it together.
This means protection needs to look beyond the individual to the wider ecosystem in which people operate. Physical, digital, psychosocial, and collective security are interconnected, as are the relationships, resources, and organisational structures that support them.
In Uganda, our work with environmental defenders leading the #StopEACOP campaign highlighted how gaps in individual security practices could expose entire networks to risk. Together, we worked to strengthen collective risk awareness and develop practical security approaches across the movement. As activist Bob Barigye explained:
“When you’re working with other defenders, everyone’s security is connected.”
Systems thinking has taught us to ask not only “How do we make this person safer?” but also “What needs to be stronger around them for them and others to continue acting?” This has informed how we support organisations and movements to better understand interconnected risks and strengthen collective approaches to protection.
10. ENDING WELL IS PART OF GOOD PROTECTION
From the beginning of an engagement, we need to think about what success looks like when our involvement ends. That means building knowledge, confidence, relationships, and systems that remain with the people and movements we support, rather than creating reliance on an external organisation.
Sometimes our role is to provide intensive support; at other times it is to step back, adapt our approach or help someone transition to other sources of support.
Over 15 years, we have learned that ending well is part of good protection practice. It means being clear about our role, recognising when that role needs to change, communicating clearly, and supporting thoughtful transitions and designing out dependency wherever possible.
LOOKING BEYOND INDIVIDUAL PROTECTION
These four lessons point to a shared principle: protection works best when responsibility is shared, care is built into the way we work, and support strengthens the relationships and systems on which collective action depends.
Defenders need more than advice or training. They need access to specialist expertise, the support to lead their own responses, and the collective resources to manage risks that no individual can address alone.
For organisations providing protection, this creates a responsibility to think carefully about how support is delivered, how power is shared, and what remains when an engagement ends.
But these principles also raise a wider question. What does it take for the organisations providing protection to remain resilient themselves, and for the wider ecosystem to continue supporting people and movements as threats and needs evolve?
In the final instalment, we turn to Open Briefing’s own experience: the organisational choices, financial stewardship, investment in people, and collaboration needed to sustain protection for the long term.