| History of the Working Group (2000-2006) |
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Following the Second and Third General Assemblies of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) in 1997 and 1999, Network members expressed considerable interest in establishing a policy-driven approach to Human Rights Education (HRE) by human rights organizations in the Euro-Mediterranean region. This initiative would form part of a general approach to strengthen recognition of the need to embed human rights principles in education and educational imperatives within human rights awareness and promotion.
The objective of the Bray workshop was to establish basic principles and practices around which the human rights education work in the Euro-Mediterranean region could proceed. The 'workshop party’ drafted a background paper on the definition and understanding of Human Rights Education. Among the paper’s recommendations was the suggestion that a Human Rights Education Working Group be established, that the Working Group should help facilitate a summer school.
In October 2002, the HRE Working Group met in Malta. (see the minutes) At this meeting the HRE WG concluded that the original background paper on Human rights education should be presented to the EMHRN Executive Committee to be adopted as a policy framework. The group discussed how to use the EMHRN report on integration of women’s rights in the MENA region in educational work, were introduced to the idea of an ‘photopack’ and decided to explore the possibility of the group producing a photo back on Sabra and Shatilla,
started discussion on the integration of human rights education into basic education curricula and the possibilities of nter-organization placements. Finally, the group started preparations for a HRE summer school to take place in Lebanon in autumn 2003 based on the HRE approach and vision developed by the group.
The HRE WG conducted the first EMHRN Summer School in Lebanon, 7-12 September 2003. The Summer school focused on methodologies of teaching human rights – combining both information on human rights backgrounds and on Human rights standards as declarations and conventions, a day on women’s rights, field work on Palestinian refugees, violence against women, and HR in school curricula and artwork as a methodology for working on HR.
The HRE WG produced a Background Paper on HRE exploring ideas and understandings, values and dispositions, skills and capacities as well as actions and experiences that underpin human rights and human rights education. The HRE WG also convened a summer school on art-based approaches to human rights education in Lebanon in 2003, which introduced the participants to art as a methodology in human rights education as well as being an experience for the group in cooperative and inter-cultural learning. The experiences are gathered in the report: Is there a real human rights education?
The group met in Belfast and Dublin, 10-14 March 2004. The HRE WG spent one day exploring the conflict in Northern Ireland through an introduction to the work of 80:20 and two other NGOs (Survivors of Trauma and Alternatives).The remaining days the group updated itself on the current projects: the Biladi: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon: a Photo Pack, and the Reader on Human Rights. The group then developed the work plan for 2004-2006, outlining the role and vision of the EMHRN HRE WG, the objectives of its strategic plan and the proposed activities.
During the General Assembly in May 2006, the EMHRN presented and debated the project in a specific workshop. Prior to the GA, the EMHRN had organised a steering group meeting in Copenhagen. In addition it identified two experts to carry out a study on “Human rights education in the Euro Mediterranean region”. (Yousry Mustapha from Egypt, and Sasa Madacki
from Bosnia-Herzegovina) The researchers did their field work over summer and a first draft was presented at the first WG meeting that was held in Copenhagen on 10-12 November 2006. The WG members were introduced to the EMHRN and the working group concept, the work of the previous WG on HRE, as well as discussing the findings of the researcher on HRE initiatives in the region and on that basis planning the summer school. The meeting was welcomed by the participants who agreed to draft a concept paper about their mandate to be presented to the EC.
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