Human Rights in Higher Education: Incorporating practical experience
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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!

JadwigaMaczynska's picture

Including new actors

I agree totally and therefore I think that it is very important to also provide those who are not enagaged in human rights as their primary committment with a possibility to participate to the extent possible for them.

Sometimes people (also students) tend to think that human rights are far too complex and  over-theoretized  a concept to be approached by someone without relevant experience. To overcome this assumption I think it is important to open up your projects and actions to the widest possible forum, as a person who once realizes the practical day-to-day impact of human rights in the society, is much more bound to commit in the future and often find his or her own ways to play a role. To this end, visibility is of key character.

Any experience on that? 

Jadwiga Maczynska, Project Manager, Jagiellonian University Human Rights Centre, Krakow, Poland