Launch of Online Course on International Protection and Asylum for Brazilian Public Defenders

Since December 2020, MIEUX+ has been working with the Brazilian Public Defenders’ Office (DPU) on international protection and asylum, implementing different capacity development and awareness-raising activities. This Friday, 11 March 2022, the MIEUX+ team is very glad to launch its first fully-fledged online course on International Protection and Asylum: Legal Assistance to Asylum-Seekers and Refugees in Brazil.

What is the training about?

The course aims to improving protection and support to asylum-seekers in Brazil by strengthening the work of public defenders and the network of civil society organisations offering legal advice and legal support to this population. Indeed, the pilot edition is targeted to public defenders and DPU civil servants who do not yet work or are starting to work in asylum cases in order to foster a greater pool of available and trained public defenders.

Future editions of this course will open the audience to members CSOs and NGOs of the legal protection and assistance network. Despite having some limitations and challenges, the online setting offers the possibility to broaden the target audience and increase the number of participants.

What will the participants learn?

This online course will provide practical and applied knowledge about asylum in Brazil, giving participants different techniques to better understand and act in asylum cases. It will be organised during five weeks, between 11 March (official launch) and 19 April.

Each week will be dedicated to a specific module developed by a pool of European and Brazilian experts: Brazilian asylum process, international and regional legislation, interview techniques, Country of Origin Information (COI), LGBTI asylum-seekers, protection of women and girls, etc. A Zoom class session with the key expert will be organised every Friday morning in order to answer the participants' questions and play around with the theoretical knowledge, with practical examples and group exercises.

What is planned next?

The MIEUX+ team is continuing to work on the awareness-raising activities in parallel, with the production of two informative videos on the asylum procedure in Brazil. As per the capacity-development aspect, a Training of Trainers (ToT) session will be organised onsite in summer 2022 in order for the public defenders to be able to replicate their knowledge to other participants, whether from the DPU, other public institutions or CSOs.

This ToT will be the opportunity to pilot the Standardised ToT material developed by MIEUX+ in collaboration with ICMPD’s office in Malta, and soon to be made available.

Learn more about the collaboration between MIEUX+ and the DPU

The interview is in Portuguese (Brazil) and subtitles in English, French and Spanish are available. You have to click on the CC button on YouTube.

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