
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?
Best wishes for your e-forum initiative! As for myself, I found it very useful, both to maintain communication and gain information and support from former colleagues you know and trust.
In the Human Rights Legal Clinic programme I coordinate we have been engaging former alumni in the orientation training sessions for new students. That proved to be a succesful idea, as former participants in the programme could both deliver necessary material and convey the right message, basing on the authority steming from their own personal experience . I think it is the "been there, done that" note that worked very well and was inspiring for new students.
Otherwise, many of our alumni continue their work in the field of human rights and some of them are currently with major local and global human rights organizations, UN, ECtHR, so they provide an excellent example of making human rights a long-term goal in their work and have a lot of insight. Sometimes, due to people's busy schedules and everyday committments, it might be actually easier to win their presence on a fixed occasion than constant communication. I guess, it might be optimal to combine both ways, whenever possible.
Jadwiga Maczynska
Jadwiga Maczynska, Project Manager, Jagiellonian University Human Rights Centre, Krakow, Poland