“Caring for myself is not an indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.” - Audre Lorde

Holistic Security is a strategy manual to help human rights defenders maintain their well-being in action. The holistic approach integrates self-care, well-being, digital security, and information security into traditional security management practices.

The Holistic Security Manual

The Holistic Security Manual is founded on the understanding that 'security' is a deeply personal, subjective and gendered concept. When we work to bring about positive social change, we can face persistent threats and attacks which impact upon our physical and psychological integrity, and often affect our friends and families. However, taking an organised approach to security can help us to sustain ourselves and our work.

This manual is the first to adopt an explicitly 'holistic' approach to security and protection strategies for human rights defenders. This means that rather than looking separately at the importance of our digital security, psycho-social well-being and organisational security processes, it attempts to integrate them and highlight their interrelatedness.

The manual is designed to guide a process of establishing or improving security strategies for individuals, collectives or organisations. The content is divided into four Sections: Prepare, Explore, Strategise and Act, which are conceived as steps in an evolving, cyclical process and should be regularly revisited as part of our ongoing strategic planning. The chapters which appear on this website are summarised versions of those in the manual, which can be downloaded and read offline.

Well-being as Subversive and Political

The holistic approach frames security for human rights defenders as well-being in action: being physically and emotionally healthy and sustaining ourselves while continuing to do the work that we believe in. Read more >>>

Security in Groups and Organisations

Groups and organisations have complex internal dynamics and cultures which influence the ways we interact and plan. Here we explore some of the key issues around building and improving security strategies and plans in groups. Read more >>>

Trainers' Manual

NEW RELEASE: The Holistic Security Trainers' Manual is out...

Holistic Security in Conversation

Tactical Tech's Hannah Smith sits down with project lead Daniel Ó Cluanaigh to...

Holistic Security & How We Got Here

Tactical Tech has been training human rights defenders in digital security since 2006 and...

Prepare

In Prepare, we begin by recognising that each of us already has and takes security measures: our strategies for health and well-being, our personal beliefs and sources of resilience and our instinctive responses to threat and danger. We encourage you to consider these and their effect on group dynamics in order to engage with security strategies in a more productive way.

Explore

In Explore, we follow a series of steps to get a better understanding of our context and come to some conclusions about the concrete threats which may arise from our work and those who oppose it.

Strategise

In Strategise, based on the threats we have already identified we consider how to create security strategies to deal with them and develop concrete plans and agreements in order to maintain our well-being in action.

Act

In Act, we identify some skills, best practices and resources which are often useful for increasing security during particular activities which are common among human rights defenders. The first guide looks at exercising the Right to Freedom of Assembly through protests and demonstrations.