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How Isabelle Vladoiu Trained in Human Rights Consultants in more than 130 Countries

Aug 15, 2024

"In 1948, in 1948, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights required human rights to be taught at every single school in the world. Seventy-seven years later but we're not even close to that desired goal ."

This is why Isabelle Vladoiu founded the US Institute of Diplomacy and Human Rights. USIDHR is committed to helping people learn about human rights via various projects, including training programs.

Initially, the institute facilitated workshops on site. Then, as Covid restrictions came into effect, putting an end to in-person classes in 2019 Isabelle and her staff shifted towards online training to continue providing human rights education to professionals.

Five years later, USIDHR boasts 24,000 students in 136 countries and nearly two million dollars in annual revenues. Continue reading to discover the process by which Isabelle accomplished this feat and the contribution she made.

Skip ahead:

She understood her audience's issues.

After working in the field of human rights for more than a decade Isabelle was aware that the single most significant barrier to education in human rights was the absence of trainers. It's not as if people weren't interested in becoming instructors. The issue was that there were no courses dedicated to training professional human rights specialists.

"Many of my pupils initially spent time on Google looking for ways to become human rights experts or how to get started in the field of human rights. But they couldn't find any practical answers. Instead, they were given general suggestions such as: go to law school," Isabelle explains.

In her time, as someone who had actually gone to law school, Isabelle realized that law school was not what the people were searching for. The only option is to study the human rights aspect of law college. But people were looking for an easier, faster way to be human rights consultants.

And that's what she gave them. As she put it, "I created this training program in order to provide people with the right tools and resources to teach their own human rights classes and establishing a business out of it."

The instructor brought personal experiences to her online classroom

Isabelle has spent a great deal of time searching for an online course platform which could provide engaging learning experiences that resemble her classes in person.

"My classes are extremely interactive, so I needed a platform with interactive boards, quizzes and even videos at the very least. Additionally, I needed to award certified certificates to students after successful completion," Isabelle explains.

In the end, she discovered . "I have done a lot of study and testing prior to taking my brand's name to . This was precisely what I had been looking for.

One of the features that stand out for her One of the most notable features she has is Progress Reports, which shows how students interact with material in real time.

"I am able to see the amount of time they spent watching each video and whether they engaged with the video content. It is really important as I must ensure that the students completed every class before they are certified as human rights consultants," Isabelle explains.

Also, she's a huge enthusiast of the capabilities that allow her to issue digital certificates through Accredible, in addition to the platform's seamless user experience.

She repurposed content

Instead of creating the online content for courses from scratch, Isabelle made a simple change to the curriculums for in-person classes. It saved her amount of time and effort she would have needed to develop course content from the ground up. She used feedback from the onsite classes to improve the course's online content prior to making it live.

She was open to collaboration

Isabelle leveraged diverse experiences and skills in her teaching through collaboration. Collaboration with experts from other fields helped to combine her strengths and ideas to create an experience that was unique to her students. In her words "I might be an expert in human rights, but I don't know it all ."

In her interview, she discusses what makes her collaborations successful, Isabelle says it comes down to trusting in the individual who is not the expert.

"I don't restrict the expertise of the instructors I have worked with. Instead, I grant the expert full creativity in determining the program based on their expertise and expertise. This way, we are able to provide a variety of perspectives in our classes."

She designed different pricing packages

Isabelle was looking for her online classes to be affordable so that the masses could benefit from them. However, she needed to make enough funds to support the institution's efforts to raise money for charity. She said that

"All proceeds from course sales goes to helping children from developing nations. We offer scholarships as well as educational supplies for kids to go to the school throughout the school year ."

Isabelle utilizes free classes as tripwire offerings to draw students. According to her "It's an opportunity for potential students to understand that we're an actual organization and there's a real person behind the camera offering genuine value before they make any payments. ."

She diversified her digital products

These tools complement the content that she has already taught in her classes. They are a part of the course packages, while others are offered as digital standalone products.

It is easy for Isabelle to organize and manage these digital products. "Everything that we manage is pretty much on . Thinkfic is our website backend which allows us to manage everything from one place," she says.

She simplified payments She made it easier to pay

Through TCommerce, Isabelle was able to get payments from students all over the world, in various currencies. However, what she appreciates most is its flexibility.

"TCommerce has been a real game-changer. I can offer subscriptions for students that can't afford to pay an upfront fee for our classes, thereby reaching more people."

Overall, TCommerce allows Isabelle to give customers a choice of pricing options and upsell customers, generating more income.

She observed her students

For Isabelle Learning isn't complete without feedback. Every course session ends by giving students the chance to talk about their experience with a class -- that is, what was successful as well as what did not and how it could be improved.

It's one thing to collect feedback and another to implement it. Isabelle constantly reviews student comments and adjusts the course content and delivery based on what's shared. According to her, "I always improve these courses based on comments that students provide at the end of each module. This allows me to meet the learner's expectations at all times ."

The final word: She stayed true to her "why"

The bulk of Isabelle as well as USIDHR's achievements stem from committing to a clear purpose. In the end, what is most important for Isabelle is spreading the message of human rights in the most wide-ranging way feasible.

"I would rather have 17,000 accredited human rights professionals instead of a small group of individuals paying us thousands of dollars, because 17,000 individuals will bring about more positive change within our communities."