L. spolander, director of studiesdep. of teacher education umeå university umeå, sweden y. wiklund, health promotion officer research & development, education and health, county council of västerbotten umeå, sweden

FROM A GLOBAL TO AN INDIVIDUAL PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION

In today globalize world different international Human Right (HR) conventions, declarations and protocols, has become the leading standard for international law in many countries. This is the most important level, that states and government have signed all documents. Even if not all states have ratified the documents, but the big majority has done that, the impact is big since almost all countries has ratified and accepted to follow the intentions in the articles. These two levels are very important, but there is a third level that is equally important and that is the individual level – the responsible citizen in a democratic state.

Since the international HR discourse is dominated by law and a law perspective, the individual responsibility for a positive HR culture in civil society is in risk in the modern welfare society.

The dominated ideology in our globalize world is the neo-liberal ideology which is in many ways quite conservative and stress that the state power and the state bureaucracy should be as small as possible and the private sphere with big companies and small individuals ought to be in focus and centre of the national state and the international community. 

In a double sense the individual is very important and should be so, and is also a responsible actor, but at the same time misfortunes and wrong doings in the neo-liberal society, is something that the individual can be blamed for.

It is necessary to have different perspective on HR, beside the important law perspective. One should encourage perspectives like historical, political, ethical, philosophical… etc. to give a wider and deepen knowledge and understanding of the modern Human Right culture. And this is of course a very important task and challenge for the educational system at all levels and at all professional educations. There is still a lot to do even if the UN declared1994-2003 as a decade for Human Rights Education all over the world.

One organization with little power is Council of Europe (COE) that has done really a lot to spread the knowledge, skills and values of human rights. COE has often in their courses and material focused on young people, promoting equality and human dignity, as they see young people as a resource. By this many networks have been created with people from different countries.

Council of Europe also support and co-operate with different forms of NGOs in their intentions and work to implement human rights education in the society.

Today we have many threats towards the world-society and it’s not only terrorism, “the war on terror”, it is also increasing inequality in economy and health and also the big climate-change threat. How can a democratic state respond to all this challenges…?

On nation level it is needed, beside laws, to create programs and plans that have a strategy to implement and follow the intentions in the HR declarations. In our modern world we also need transparency to have structures that could empower the individual citizen.

There is a big importance of building up a strong civil society with a citizen that is aware of their rights, but also can see and act in a way that supports other individuals.

The message in our human rights courses is to empower the individual that everyone can make a difference.

During the last 12 years, we have been involved in Umeå University Summer courses. One big aim has been to bring people together for mutual personal development. We have had different subjects connected with History, Social Sciences, Democracy, Human Rights and Gender.

The courses have been given in a spirit of Human Rights and Humans Rights Education.

Target group for these courses have been students and teachers from different discipline and Universities from countries in East Europe. All in all about 600 students have participated in these courses. This work have developed and resulted among other things a special PhD-course: Research School on Democracy, Human Rights, and Gender – Education in a Global Era, and also with a long term co-operation with University of Fort Hare in South Africa. The last two years we have also been able to give shorter courses in this field in Eastern Europe.

Some years ago it came several requests from participant’s that they wanted us to come to their country and give weekend courses at their Universities. The reason was that they wanted more students from their own university to have a possibility to participate in similar courses. We started up by organizing a three day course - step 1 in Human Rights Education. The aim and learning outcomes from this course was:

To deepen knowledge about the context of the Human Rights Declarations and Conventions.

To know, describe, analyze and discuss key concepts such as freedom, justice, equality, human dignity, non-discrimination and democracy

To implement new HR knowledge in education and everyday life

This course was followed by a second step for the participants, more focusing on facilitating and giving tools for the participant’s future work with Human Rights Education.

Human Rights can be taught in different ways, some of this knowledge can be learned by reading. To really deepen ones knowledge in Human Rights we think it is important to get deep into your own values and feel Human Rights in the heart and stomach. The only way to absorb this knowledge for a person is to take part in different exercises and to implement the important deep meaning of the core concepts of Human Rights. It is the close and ordinary values that form a person’s behaviour. This spirit creates trust among people, something that is really needed in our rapidly changing society.

Human Right is important in all education situations. It is nothing that can be taking for granted. It has to be taught, learned and practiced. People in all different professions have there own responsibility to act and behave in a spirit of Human Right culture.

One of the main aims of our courses has been to create an atmosphere of Human Rights in the group, by our own behaviour and acting so that the participants could feel safe to explore and discuss their feelings and values.

Some quotations from the participants:

“The aim of creating the basic platform of a democratic agora – where everybody was seen and heard is a thing that is present in all situations regardless which form it was done in. The relationship between the form and the content seems also go hand in hand, although the time limit maybe have shorten the reflection and debriefing about  the steps that were taken. The Dialog Café idea - the form in which the participants brought their own human right case, may last for a bit longer time.”

“The critical dimension bloomed out within this friendly atmosphere – something that was created during the course. The diversity of working forms with, constant changing group members became an invisible veil – so the aim to hold the course in the spirit of Human Rights seems to be fulfilled.”

Many of the participants have become more engage and aware of HR and HR abuse and are today active in both their profession and also in NGOs. They do really see and act in the highest important value in the dignity of the other person. They have realized the importance of standing up and defend the rights of others in different situations. The attitude has change, today the human rights culture is a part of their personal issue.