There’s an urgent wellbeing crisis in the human rights sector. Those of us on the inside have known about it for a long time. Now it’s been blown open as Amnesty International teeters on the brink of mission failure having lost sight of the human that’s inherent to human rights: Staff suicides, a toxic work environment, bullying, harassment, depression, sexism, abuses of power, discrimination, martyrdom culture, undressed staff trauma, chronic stress, unhappiness and burnout.

And that’s not all. Amnesty International rubbed salt in open wounds last week when it announced that the “leaders” under whose watch this happened will not resign. Instead, they’ll receive “redundancy” payoffs whilst more than 100 staff will lose their jobs as a direct result of those same managers’ “irresponsible overspending and over-scoping.”

But it’s not just Amnesty International that’s got a wellbeing problem. A major study of 70 organisations in 35 different counties published last month identified what it called “a culture of unwellness” amongst human rights advocates.

The study’s findings are similar to those set out in my own 2016 research into vicarious trauma – elevated levels of stress, burnout and trauma are evident amongst human rights advocates and their organisations are doing very little, if anything, to respond. At Amnesty, an independent review of staff wellbeing found that the root cause of high levels of stress, burnout, anxiety, depression, exhaustion, and trauma amongst staff was not the content of the work itself, but “organisational culture and management failures.”

Some organisations are now trying to do something, but have misguidedly pinned their hopes on the modern mantra of “self-care.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a huge advocate my own self- care, and yours too. But it’s fundamentally misconceived, counterproductive and quite simply missing the point to respond to a sector-wide organisational culture of unwellness by asking employees to tend to their individual self-care.

The problem isn’t rooted in some lazy employee’s half-baked efforts to look after themselves. Rather, the wellbeing crisis in the human rights sector is a structural, organisational and political problem that no amount of yoga, individual therapy or any other dose of self-care can fix.

Telling employees to “just breath,” do some yoga, or “be mindful” is not how organisations can promote wellbeing. If you work on traumatic content, have an insanely urgent and overbearing workload that keeps you up late at night seven days a week, and have unsupportive managers, plus conflict in your team, no amount of “and just breathe” is going to turn things around.

I’ll stick my neck out and say that if you work for Amnesty International right now you’d probably much rather have the “leaders” take responsibility for what they have done, say no to the payoffs and just leave, instead of being asked to share your personal strategies for self-care and wellbeing.

Yes, organisations need to provide resources and foster a culture where employees have the space and time to look after themselves so that they can be effective, healthy and happy human beings. But organisational efforts to address wellbeing need to focus on repairing the structural, cultural and organisational fault lines.

What the human rights movement does not need right now is corporate consultants. We need compassionate and competent leaders who take responsibility, continually develop their leadership skills and understand that treating staff with respect and decency is a duty rooted in a human right’s mandate and underpins the effectiveness and sustainability of activism, organisations and the movement as a whole. Employees, volunteers and interns need to feel valued and respected, have job satisfaction and security, fair pay, rights and benefits, and gain practical support to repair broken and dysfunctional teams. These are the things that are fundamental to organisational wellbeing.

Liz Griffin is an executive, leadership and career coach who helps human rights and humanitarian organisations and professionals to be more effective, make big impacts and stay well. She has 25 years of experience in the non-profit sector working with the UN, NGOs (including Amnesty International) and at universities, rising to the level of professor of international human rights law.

Liz is Fellow, University of Essex Human Rights Centre, Honorary Faculty Member, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, International Coaching Federation accredited Associate Certified Coach (ACC) and she has been teaching yoga and meditation since 2006. Find out more about Liz here.