The Human Rights Education Toolkit is the culmination of the Erasmus+ Key Action 2 project “Communicating Human Rights in Diversity” comprising volunteering and civil society organisations in 16 countries around the world. It has been possible through the concerted efforts of human rights multipliers who drafted training programmes for EVS and ICYE volunteers at the international human rights multiplier training and subsequently implemented local trainings and supported volunteers in reflecting on human rights issues in the respective host countries.
The toolkit combines the outcomes of the Bogotá conference – the feedback from multipliers on the local HRE trainings, the support provided to volunteers locally, the draft programmes and methodology for human rights education initially developed in Copenhagen and reworked at the conference, the finding of the study, and the recommendations of the project’s multipliers – to provide volunteering organisations worldwide practice-based tools and programmes for human rights education.
The toolkit is a product of the “Communicating Human Rights in Diversity” project and is meant to assist staff members, youth workers, trainers and facilitators, who wish to introduce a human rights education approach to international voluntary work, and are thus involved in the preparation and support of volunteers before and during their voluntary service experience. The toolkit provides guidelines for exploring the notion of diversity, intercultural communication and the values on which human rights are based.
It offers four training programmes, each addressing a specific area of human rights work, i.e. work with vulnerable people and groups. These include human rights work in relation to 1) gender equality, 2) children, 3) health and disability, 4) disadvantaged groups and the displaced.
The toolkit has been divided into different chapters as follows:
- Chapter 4 explains the relevance of and connects human rights education to international voluntary service.
- Chapter 5 presents the four draft programmes.
- Chapter 6 discusses the planning and preparation required for human rights education trainings
- Chapter 7 describes support measures that will enable continuous reflection on human rights, power and privileges among different groups in society but particularly between volunteers and local community members.
- Chapter 8 emphasizes the importance of self-assessment and offers tools and links to online resources.
- Chapter 9 presents detailed descriptions of the methods presented in the four draft programmes.
- Chapter 10 provides a list of references and further publications and websites on human rights education.
- Chapter 11 lists the multipliers of the human rights project involved in putting together the toolkit.