
The November New Tactics on-line dialogue features “Human Rights in Higher Education: Incorporating practical experience”. This dialogue specifically features ideas, experiences and methods from human rights higher education programs for incorporating practical experience into human rights curriculums to better prepare human rights advocates for doing “on the ground” and “in the trenches” human rights work.
The featured resource practitioners (biographical information) include:
- Abigail Booth, Programme Manager, Head of Nairobi Office, Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Kenya
- Alice Nderitu, Fahamu (Kenya) in coordination with the University of Pretoria, South Africa
- Jadwiga Maczynska, Project Manager, Jagiellonian University Human Rights Centre, Krakow, Poland
- Mingzhen Ge, Shandong University, Human Rights Center, Law School, China
- Diane Sisely, Director, Australian Centre for Human Rights Education at RMIT University
- Barbara Frey, Director, Human Rights Program, University of Minnesota, USA
- Robin Kirk, Director, Duke University Human Rights Center, North Carolina, USA
- Nicole Palasz, Center for International Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
- Amy Weismann, Deputy Director, University of Iowa Center for Human Rights
- Susan Atwood, Instructor, University of Minnesota’s Leadership : Leadership for Global Citizenship.
| Be sure to take a look at our new collection of articles, guides, and classroom modules for your curriculum: New Tactics Resources for Educators! |
Main themes of this dialogue:
- Stories of Practice: examples of how practical experience is being incorporated in human rights education programs
- Challenges: ethical issues with incorporating practical experience in human rights education programs
- Curriculum Resources: creating and simulating practical experience
Please help us to keep this dialogue organized by 'replying' to these main themes, or 'replying' to other comments, instead of creating NEW comments. Thanks!

Make use of former students - and use of internships
I'm wondering how many of your human rights programs require your students to have an "internship" type of experience with an NGO or other kind of human rights institution to have a hands-on, practical work experience.
New Tactics considers itself very fortunate to be a host site for students doing such internships. It is a great benefit to us - helping us to accomplish far more than we could otherwise - and a benefit to students to have the opportunity to work with us and contribute their time, energy and skills to our work and mission. Quite a number of students continue to volunteer their time with New Tactics after their internship period has been completed. We have also had the good fortune to hire some of them staff members in our organization.
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager