Democratic citizenship and human rights education

Human rights start with breakfast! Empower youth through human rights education

The main aim of the project implemented between 2015 and 2017 is to strengthen the capacity of civil society organisations that work with young people from Romania, Italy, France, Denmark, Peru and Guyana to develop an effective, coherent, inclusive and sustainable framework for promoting and using human rights education.

The project partners are: EIVA Association (Arad, Romania), Peruvian Institute for Human Rights and Peace Education (Lima, Peru), REDU (Florence, Italy), CEMEA Reunion (Reunion Island), InterStep (Aalborg, Denmark), Youth Challenge Guyana (Georgetown, Guyana). The project is financed through the Erasmus Plus Programme, Key Action 2 – Capacity Building for Youth

The objectives of the project are:

 – To develop competences in human rights education for 30 youth workers from the partner organisations

 – To develop basic competences in human rights for 300 young persons from the partner organisations

 – To increase the cooperation at local and regional level between different stakeholders (schools/NGOs and community)

 – To promote active citizenship and human rights values

 – To increase the personal and professional development for 6 youths from Peru during 7 months of international volunteering

 – To create an interactive, user friendly and accessible platform for human rights education.

The overall project objectives are to invest in local youth workers that will become multipliers in their communities and will generate local activities that will involve more young people. The methodology developed for the training course for the youth workers in the field of Human Rights education will be easy to use also by others actors in the field of education and this will increase the competences of young people to become promoters of human rights. Human rights education implies transversal competences that contribute to the professional growth of the youth workers. By participating in this project, all the partners will increase their competences to work towards a more inclusive society. The partners will learn about different realities from Peru and Guyana and will have the opportunity to transfer the know-how, bringing thus change into the local communities and improving their work with the young people. Organisations from Peru and Guyana will have the chance to learn by doing how active organisations from EU countries are working with young people, what methods are most effective and how non-formal education can impact the professional and personal growth of young people. All the partners involved will have the opportunity to train local youth and then to maintain a direct communication with the consortium via on-line platform. The partner from EU will bring their experience in mobility and will have the opportunity to get to know realities and methods of working from organisations from Peru and Guyana.

The project will impact the participating organisations increasing their capacity to work in an international environment, improving their methods to work with young people and developing new relationships.  This project is a start for future similar initiatives providing concrete tools on how to build and maintain international partnerships. In November 2016, 30 youth workers from the partner countries took part in a human rights education training course and study visits in Lima and Cusco, Peru, to develop their competences in youth work on human rights issues to better work with the youth in local communities. In the framework of this training, different human rights education activities and methods were also tested to be subsequently included in a handbook elaborated as a result of this project.