Educating and Inspiring Action for Human Rights

Educating and Inspiring Action for Human Rights

Education in CISV

As CISVers, we are very familiar with the concept of peace education. By peace education we mean that we look for non-violent alternatives to conflicts, cultivating dialogue and coexistence. Our educational programmes aim to develop a combination of knowledge and skills sustained by values that inspire our attitudes for a more peaceful and just world.

We also know that Human Rights are one of CISV’s educational content areas. But have you ever thought about what Human Rights mean in relation to peace education? What about Human Rights education? What is it all about and how can we work with it in our programs and in our chapters?

In this post, we are first going to talk about Human Rights education and about its connection with peace education. Later, we are going to take a quick look at a few small tips to bring the first part to our reality.

IPP Feed, 2015, Londrina – Brazil. Working with the local community on the right to food and the right to play.

The core of Human Rights was set in 1948 on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It’s a document worth reading and re-reading from time to time.  Its essence is all about protecting human dignity and valuing fundamental rights and freedoms.

Human Rights education is a tool to spread the word on Human Rights and to build knowledge, skills and attitudes to protect and promote Human Rights in our daily lives.

Recalling Adelaida Barrera and Rupert Friederichsen’s article back in 2013, the best way to look at Human Rights education is using three perspectives: educating about, for and through human rights. A visual form of these dimensions could be:

Knowing about human rights means becoming familiar with what Human Rights are and what they represent in our lives. We can see Human Rights in an individual dimension, learning what they mean for myself, my own life and my environment. We can also look at them in a collective dimension and learn that “if those rights are for myself, they are for all others around me”. Connecting to peace education, knowing about Human Rights helps us understand that there is no place for violence, intolerance, discrimination when you acknowledge that we should respect people’s dignity and that we are all entitled to the same rights and freedoms.

Through Human Rights represents the principles, the values and the means that are part of the way of developing an educational process. Human Rights should be on the top of our minds in planning, implementing and evaluating steps. From our peace education point of view, Human Rights support bringing the abstract things into words. It helps us to g values, such as equality and justice, that are important to create a safe, inclusive, participative and constructive environment.

Acting for Human Rights shows the purpose, the aim of all we do and why we do it for. It represents being inspired and willing to take actions to respect individuals’ rights and dignity, giving the sense of responsibility for the decisions we make for ourselves and the impact they have on others. This is everything related to our peace education goals, to educate and inspire active global citizens to take actions for a more peaceful and just world, choosing dialogue over violence, choosing respect and valuing others and choosing life with dignity and equality.

Ultimately, Human Rights education is an important tool for a stronger development of peace education and a support base for a lasting impact of educational experiences.

Right! But how do we bring all of it to our reality?

This Human Rights campaign will take us all on a fun and revealing ride into this content area with practical tips to bring it all into action. To warm up with our expedition, here are some thoughts to explore this first “Human Rights education + peace education” overview:

About.
Let’s try an exercise to think and reflect about whether we are aware of our rights and where to learn about them. If you were to explain Human Rights to someone else, how would you do it? What is the right you identify the most with and that you want to spread to the world? With the next friend or relative you meet, try taking 5 minutes to talk about that right you thought about.

Through.
Then let’s think about our actions in our daily lives and in our CISV moments. Am I making sure people are being included and feeling included and respected? Do I feel included and respected? Let’s think about how we talk to each other, how we interact. Do I feel comfortable and treated equally? Do I treat people equally? What can I do to make it better? How can I make my environment, my decisions and my actions reflect the values I cherish for?

For.
Finally, let’s remember why we do all of this for. Let’s think about the persons we aim to inspire and the reason we are eager to inspire them for. Our aims, our goals, our purpose should always be clearly and strongly guiding us through our way.

It was fun to explore this first step into Human Rights. There is more to come!

Stay tuned.

Are you ready for this journey? Let’s go!

Adriana Rodrigues

on behalf of the Human Rights Team

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Knowing more about human rights.

• Are you curious to know what kind of international human rights documents your country chose to be part of? Looking at this cool interactive map of the UN’s office dedicated to Human Rights (OHCHR).

• Check out the manual “Understanding Human Rights” available in 18 languages.

• Here a UN Resolution reflecting the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training