Keep an open mind, experience a different world Sebastian’s thoughts and reflections on his advanced training in Germany

Date: 2024/09/15-09/27
Location:  Gummersbach, Germany
Goals: To explore the intersectionality of business and human rights and to develop strategies and actions for the collaboration between civil society and businesses 
Outcomes: Learning about the current human rights development in each participating country, the development and future trend of the European Union’s human rights due diligence survey, and devising strategies and actions for NGOs to advocate LGBTQ+ rights to businesses 

TEC’s deputy executive director Sebastian attended an advanced training course in Germany in September 2024, during which he developed some profound and different perspectives on human rights and the rights of sexual minorities. You can read about Sebastian’s thoughts in the article below.  

Background to the training course in Germany 
Located in Germany, Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) is a non-profit organization promoting freedom, democracy, human rights, and diversity that often organizes different types of training courses and seminars. Last September, FNF held at its Germany headquarters the “Business and Human Rights” seminar, a subject relevant to Sebastian’s main responsibility at TEC. Sebastian tells us passionately: “I was hoping to make use of this opportunity to learn more about how NGOs in other countries perceived the relationship between business and human rights, and more importantly, to identify relevant resources for TEC and to establish a comprehensive narrative for workplace inclusion.”   

In recent years, Sebastian has been TEC’s representative to interact and collaborate with businesses. As he used to look at things rather from the perspective of an NGO, he was hoping to learn from this conference how businesses perceive their collaboration with NGOs and what difficulties they might face, so as to foster more possibilities for conversations between NGOs and businesses.  

Allies, not enemies
Through a practical exercise at the conference, Sebastian and the human rights activists from other countries had a thought-provoking experience. In a discussion session highlighting a simulated scenario, the attendees were given the role of either a member of the board of directors or of the advisory board of a company, who had to assess the impact its production line had on the local community. As this production line could harm local residents’ right to living, the board members had to decide whether to relaunch the production line and whether the residents should be evicted once the production was to be relaunched. What could the respective strategies in response to the eviction and non-eviction be?

Businesses and NGOs have very different decision-making modes. Businesses usually seek to reduce costs and maximize profits, while NGOs’ decisions are made to promote certain agendas, advocate, or provide services. This exercise was a very precious experience for Sebastian: “When we first started our discussion, we naturally assumed that the production should not be relaunched. However, as a member of the board, I had to step out of the mindset of an NGO and consider things from the perspective of businesses and profits. Therefore, it was inevitable for the production to be relaunched. The point was how to reduce the harm to the minimum.”   

“We are not enemies but allies. After all, advocacy work needs funding too. Therefore, instead of fearing that NGOs may be taken advantage of when working with a business, we should think about how we can turn businesses into our partners and a boost to the promotion of issues.” Through this role play, Sebastian realized that for businesses, profits are often prioritized over human rights. Yet, as an NGO worker, he believes that some common grounds can be found between the two. For example, both businesses and NGOs share the goal of solving problems; they just have different perspectives and focus on different angles.  

Self-awareness: taking care of oneself first before advocating for others
“NGO workers are often busy with coping with different issues and catching up with their work, and as a result, are very likely to forget about taking care of themselves. Yet, how to respond to the needs of the public and one’s colleagues often has to do with one’s own condition. Such a self-awareness exercise has helped me calm down to reflect on my own situation and remind myself to take a break every now and then.” In addition to the practical exercise, this conference also devoted quite some time to teaching the attendees about how to become aware of their own condition. For example, before the conference started. attendees were given some questions that helped them connect with their inner condition and observe if they were fully present at the conference, or if not, why they were distracted. As Sebastian has worked at an NGO for years, he was very moved by such an exercise. 

In addition to the self-awareness exercise, the conference also had a “learning partner” system, which enabled everyone to share their self-awareness with their “learning partner,” to discuss what they learned, and to form a deeper connection. Sebastian’s learning partner was a Zimbabwean activist working for the International Amnesty. Sebastian tells us the benefits of this design: “During this conference, I met attendees from all over the world, and we learned from each other while exchanging different viewpoints and cultural backgrounds, inspiring new ideas from each other. And my learning partner was a partner that I truly trusted and could push me forward on this journey.”  

Sebastian’s learning partner came from an environment with limited resources, but she strongly identified with her own country and believed that being able to attend a foreign conference reflected the voices of Zimbabweans. In one discussion where the attendees shared what they considered their greatest achievement, she said: “I once went to a community for some public communication. It was really empty there back then and almost no building was seen. Thus, I gathered all the residents underneath a tree and discussed with them issues regarding human rights. No matter where it is, as long as someone is willing to listen to me, I will continue to talk. ”  

No hierarchy among human rights
As the attendees were from different places in the world, those from the same region were grouped together and asked to share with others the challenges they faced in their region in terms of human rights, as well as the current solutions and outcomes. As a representative from East Asia, Sebastian was in the same group with activists from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thail. In terms of the progress in human rights in East and Southeast Asia, same-sex marriage has been an important achievement, which was not only an encouragement for the activists in other Southeast Asian countries, but also brought them much confidence. Sebastian also noticed that countries in East and Southeast Asia shared quite some similarities. For example, while the understanding of human rights within Asian society mostly came from Western society, it was often under the restraints of traditional Asian values, such as believing that teenagers are not mature enough to vote so the voting age couldn’t be lowered, or that LGBTQ+ were against traditional family values because they could not have children. All these ideas affected the promotion of different agendas. 

These exchanges showed that every region faced its unique challenges in terms of human rights, ranging from the right to living, the right to work, corruption to child labor. The issues were so diverse that it was difficult to simply tell which issue was more important. Sebastian had a special realization during the conference: “I was thinking constantly, that human rights issues were in a much more advanced status in Taiwan, for example, the promotion of LGBTQ+-inclusive workplaces. Compared to other more urgent issues, such as LGBTQ+’s right to live, should we still talk about the difficulties faced in our country?” With this question in mind, Sebastian asked his study buddy, who replied to him: “We represent our individual country, and it is our responsibility to share the issues faced in our countries so that we can exchange solutions. The point is not to prove how well we’ve done.” This inspired Sebastian: “As a Taiwanese, I’ve always wanted to prove Taiwan’s achievements subconsciously, but sometimes, giving up such obsession and focusing on my exchanges with other attendees helped me discover different viewpoints.”

A Ukrainian activist advocating for LGBTQ+ issues also shared with Sebastian a different way of thinking: “Because of the war, my country pays less attention to LGBTQ+ issues. Therefore, I wish to find the connection between LGBTQ+ and wars, for example, how LGBTQ+ soldiers may be bullied, isolated, or even disappear from the army. Meanwhile, we wish to emphasize the idea of how LGBTQ+ have protected our country, so that the society may become more acceptable.”

Another memorable moment for Sebastian was when a Lebanese activist decided to leave the conference early because of Israel's attack on Lebanon so that he could be with the people there. Sebastian reflects on the incident; “I first thought this issue was very far away from me. It was just a piece of news. Yet, ever since I met someone from there and he shared with our group how the bombs were destroying the area near his home, I couldn’t help feeling helpless. Other activists reminded me that what I could do was to share the information with more people, start international donation campaigns, or even lobby my own Department of Foreign Affairs. All these have made me realize that every issue is close to us, it only differs if we make the connection or not.”

Follow-up actions post the training course in Germany
The theme of this conference was human rights and business, which was somewhat different from the conferences Sebastian attended in the past, which focused on LGBTQ+ issues. This encouraged him to reflect on his position at this conference. At the conference, the attendees were constantly discussing the basic values and the development of human rights, as well as absorbing a huge amount of information within this short period of time. Thus, Sebastian told himself that he must continue to read more and learn more about the human rights issues in other countries after returning to Taiwan.

Also, because of this conference, Sebastian has become more aware of the operational logic of a business and started to think about how to encourage businesses to participate in or support LGBTQ+ issues. For example, he has come up with the idea of conducting a consumer survey to find out if people care when a business is pro-LGBTQ+ or not. Or the idea of collaborating with NGOs in other fields, so as to discuss the issue of intersectionality and to develop potential narratives to convince businesses and relevant stakeholders to join the collaboration. 

This conference has given Sebastian a lot to think about. He tells us happily: “I hope that I will be able to organize a sharing session or a workshop to share with others my experiences.” In December 2024, he finally realized his wish to hold a sharing session. 

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