CIVICUS World Assembly 2011
Workshop report
What does "Human Rights" mean to you? Human rights learning as a way of life
Thematic Track: Democratic Space
Activity Format : Training Workshop
Number of participants : Men : 9
Women : 9
(Total : 18
)
Time and date : September 11th 14h-17h
Presenters :
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Jeffery Huffines, CIVICUS UN Representative, International Consortium for Human
Rights Learning as a way of life, USA;
Robert Kesten, Executive Director and CEO, Founding president and advisor,
Peoples Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE), USA;
Jesse Hawkes, Executive Director and Rwanda Program Director, Global Youth
Connect (GYC), USA
Megan MacGarry, Project coordinator, CIVICUS, South Africa;
Abstract
This session invites participants to share on the learning of human rights as a new and
innovative framework of organization. Participants will consider ways in which civil
society can better participate as equals in local and global decision-making by
integrating the learning of human rights as a way of life in their organisations and
communities. Through dialogue and exercises, participants will be invited to re-imagine
and redefine the meaning of human rights, away from an exclusive focus on violation to
one of realisation. This aims to transform one's personal and collective understanding of
how to achieve social justice objectives. In addition to this, key elements of the specific
efforts of human rights education methodologies will be discussed and analyzed on how
these can be used to reach new audiences, as part of the ongoing learning process.
Outline
Jeffery Huffines: Global Consortium for Human Rights Learning: Outlines
the intentions and goals of the Consortium and how it is being managed, who is
involved and what future strategies it has. Also provides an explanation on the
UN General Assembly resolution on HR etc as further background.
2. Megan MacGarry: Every Human Has Rights: Explains the premise of the
campaign and what activities it covers to promote human rights learning
3. Robert Kesten: Outlines the organisation and its main strategies such as
Human Rights Cities. Group reading of a summary of the 30 articles from the
UDHR and group activity on these articles.
4. Jesse Hawkes: Global Youth Connect:Gives a 10 minute overview of what a
GYC Human Rights Learning and Action Summit in Rwanda looks like. What
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CIVICUS World Assembly 2011
Workshop report
impacts they have, how they integrate Learning with various forms of actions
(advocacy and service). Provides an overview of what activities are being
covered in the Rwanda project.
5. Self-presentation of every participant in the activity and explanation of
reasons to attend the workshop
6. Critical thinking exercise as a group
7. Conclusions and final round up discussions
Key presentation items
Education and integration are essential for human rights to be know and applied in our
everyday life. It is vital to make theses rights our own by personalizing the UDHR.
Human rights should be inalienable in order for them to become reality for everyone. As
stated in article 30, no state government should put restrictions on the 30 articles of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
Were diversity, equality or gender issues raised or tackled?
Equality and gender issues were raised through the discussions on the UDHR.
Check the categories of results that apply for this session and give examples.
Dissemination of participatory methodologies through discussion on the UDHR.
Discussion with the audience (summary)
Forcing someone not to do something is as bad as forcing someone to do something. As
an example, forcing someone not to wear a veil can be seen as the same kind of
violation as if another person was forced to wear a veil.
When it comes to human rights, countries considered “developed” face many HR
violations. For example, 40 years ago, the African-Americans were denied their most
basic rights; nowadays, immigrants in the US still go through the same discrimination.
Key lessons of the session
Jeffery Huffines
Global consortium for human rights learning was founded in 2010. Importance of the UN
General Assembly resolution 64/82 for the conversation.
Megan
Since 2008, there is a very broad Campaign :”Every Human Has Rights” to create
education awareness about the HR chart. Working on the basis that every human
“should” have rights, it is fighting for a world of justice.
Jesse
“Global Youth Connect” works with youth form Canada and Rwanda to discuss HR and
run 3 weeks programs in Rwanda. In 2012, they will run a program in NYC to address
HR both in the South and in the North. There is a stigma attached to the expression HR
CIVICUS World Assembly 2011
Workshop report
in Rwanda because a lot of organisations focus on civil and political rights only, but still
describe themselves as HR organisations. Youth from Rwanda desires to focus on
access to water, education and access to health care; GYC therefore needs to clarify
that HR do include all of these thematics.
Robert:
As one grows and experiences different aspects of life, that person integrates HR into
his life. It is difficult to implement the 30 articles from the UDHR, but he suggested that
instead of trying to apply the 30 articles, we ought to chose 3 of these rights and try to
implement them in our own life with our own personal way of seeing the world.
Exercise: “Look at your intimacy circle and related institutions. Can you say you always
respected the 30 articles of the UDHR?”
From this exercise, you can realize that no one can ever say that they respected the 30
articles of the UDHR in all circumstances of their life. A good way of training is to pick a
few articles and work on them on a daily basis in our personal life. For each and every
articles of the UDHR, we have a personal responsibility: for example, even though you
have freedom of speech, you shouldn’t scream “fire” in a full theatre.
Invitation to collaborate to form HR Cities through PDHRE programs.
Contact people and organisation
Jeff Huffines: [email protected]
Jesse Hawkes: [email protected]
Megan MacGarry: [email protected]
Robert Kesten: [email protected]
http://everyhumanhasrights.org
http://www.globalyouthconnect.org
www.pdhre.org/Human_Rights_Cities_Book.pdf