1. Letter from the chair

2. Plan of Action for the first phase of the World Programme for HRE adopted!

Dear human rights educators,

On 14 July 2005, by resolution 59/113B, the General Assembly adopted by consensus the revised Plan of Action for the first phase (2005-2007) of the World Programme for Human Rights Education (2005-ongoing); you may remember that such first phase is focussing on the integration of human rights education within the primary and secondary school systems. The full text of the resolution in English, French and Spanish is below, and the Plan of Action is available in all UN languages on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) at http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/education/training/programme.htm

This is an important step for all of us. As you may know, the Plan of Action proposes a comprehensive implementation strategy for the national level. The main responsibility for implementation rests with the Ministry of Education in each country, which should assign or strengthen a relevant department or unit responsible for coordinating the elaboration, implementation and monitoring of the national implementation strategy, in close collaboration with all relevant actors. Member states are also encouraged to identify and support a resource centre for collecting and disseminating initiatives and information (good practice from diverse contexts and countries, educational materials, events) on human rights education at the national level.

The adoption of the Plan of Action provides all of us with a further opportunity to encourage national implementation of human rights education and with a platform for cooperation based on internationally agreed standards and principles. According to the Plan of Action, human rights education in the school system not only includes the integration into the curriculum and textbooks of human rights issues but also involves the educational processes and the environment within which education takes place.

OHCHR and UNESCO are taking steps to disseminate the Plan of Action and will assist states to implement it; we will keep you informed of relevant developments.

Kind regards.

Elena Ippoliti, OHCHR Headquarters (Geneva)

Myriam Karela, UNESCO Headquarters (Paris)

59/113B. World Programme for Human Rights Education

The General Assembly,

Recalling the relevant resolutions adopted by the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights concerning the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education, 1995–2004,

Convinced that human rights education is a long-term and lifelong process through which everyone learns tolerance and respect for the dignity of others and the means and methods of ensuring that respect in all societies,

Believing that human rights education is essential to the realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms and contributes significantly to promoting equality, preventing conflict and human rights violations and enhancing participation and democratic processes, with a view to developing societies in which all human beings are valued and respected,

Welcoming the proclamation by the General Assembly on 10 December 2004 of the World Programme for Human Rights Education, structured in consecutive phases, which began on 1 January 2005,

1. Adopts the revised draft plan of action for the first phase (2005–2007) of the World Programme for Human Rights Education, which focuses on primary and secondary school systems;
   
2. Encourages all States to develop initiatives within the World Programme and, in particular, to implement, within their capabilities, the plan of action;
   
3. Requests the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in close cooperation with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, to promote the national implementation of the plan of action, provide relevant technical assistance when requested and coordinate related international efforts;
   
4. Appeals to relevant organs, bodies or agencies of the United Nations system, as well as all other international and regional intergovernmental and nongovernmental organisations, within their respective mandates, to promote and technically assist, when requested, the national implementation of the plan of action;
   
5. Calls upon all existing national human rights institutions to assist in the implementation of human rights education programmes consistent with the plan of action;
   
6. Requests the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to widely disseminate the plan of action among States and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations.
   

113th plenary meeting, 14 July 2005

• encouraging participation of local organisations, groups and ethnic entities in the decision-making process
  
• improvement of communications between civil society, local government and business; and
  
• promotion of a culture of democratic conflict resolution.
  

More information on the Leadership Institute and the Interethnic Integration programme, as well as our other activities, is available at our web-site http://www.partnersbg.org.
If you have further questions or are in any other way interested in our activities, do not hesitate to contact us:

Stefan Stoyanov / Programme Manager, Interethnic Integration [stefan@partnersbg.org] (re the Programme)
or Daniela Kolarova / PBF Director [partners@partnersbg.org] (re other issues).

Young people’s achievements

Participants have chosen to campaign on a wide range of issues from gun crime and mobile phone theft to school bullying. Examples of young people’s successes so far include:

• The Value Life group from Gladesmore Community School have successfully run and organised a campaign on the devastating issue of gun crime by organising a march and a rally attended by over 100 people from their local community. As a result of their dedication and campaigning efforts, gun crime has been incorporated into the school’s Citizenship curriculum and the young people have run assemblies and sessions to raise awareness amongst their peers about gun crime. They are planning another march on June 24th. Value Life won a Wavemakers Award in 2005 and were Deutsche Bank Spotlight Awards finalists 2005.
  
• The Tottenham based Stonebridge Road Estate group won a Philip Lawrence Award in 2004 for their outstanding achievement in good citizenship. They organised a Make a Change day for local residents in order to lobby Council members. They: appeared on Newsnight in July 2004; persuaded the council to install new lighting and remove dangerous equipment and secured £2,400 from the Community Chest for facilities for improved recreational facilities on the estate. Make a Change won Haringey Council’s Most Active Tenants group (special prize) in 2004 and a Wavemakers Award in 2005. They were chosen as 1 of only 15 case studies as part of BT’s Seen and Heard project in 2005.
  
• The Anti-Bullying Massif at Central Foundation School for Boys, Islington group trained as peer mentors and set up an anti-bullying referral and peer counselling programme in their school. They have organised assemblies and training sessions for students and staff at local Islington schools and have been involved in a number of London and national initiatives including a DfES anti-bullying film. They were also chosen as 1of only 15 case studies as part of BT’s Seen and Heard project in 2005 and are winners of a Diana, Princes of Wales Anti-Bullying Award.
  
• The Haringey based Northumberland Park Community School group’s campaign against mobile phone theft (Engage) was chosen as an example of best practice by Council of Europe project, the European Charter for Democratic Schools without Violence. Two student delegates attended the project conference at the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg in July. They have recruited allies from their school and across Haringey. Engage were Deutsche Bank Spotlight Award finalists 2005.
  

Endorsements

“Youth Act helped me to be more aware of the things I could do for the community.” Nathan,13
“It has meant that I have been able to make a change about something I feel strongly about.” Yasemin, 15
“It has meant to me that small people do have powers and sometimes grown-ups don’t realise, but we small people do!!!” Zak, 14
“It was one of the best experiences of my life.” Yvonne, 15
“Youth Act has changed who I am.” Jarrell, 14

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“Such work is needed now more than ever and the fact that the Youth Act! pilot has succeeded in enabling young people to engage in political action in their communities demonstrates that this is This is a scheme that warrants attention and resources. The statistical and qualitative data arising from this evaluation proves that the programme does have a marked effect on young people’s confidence and motivation to participate. The programme has the potential to be adapted to the needs of local situations and has great transferability.” (3 Consultancy, independent evaluation)

What is active citizenship?
Active citizenship can be defined as citizens taking opportunities to become actively and democratically involved in defining and tackling the problems of their communities and improving their quality of life.

Many people have problems or feel inhibited from participating actively in society. You may have found ways of motivating them or you may have developed activities enabling them:

• to learn about their rights and duties as a citizen;
  
• to value prior learning and experiences as sources of greater self-esteem;
  
• to get involved in environmental issues in the community and beyond;
  
• to engage in further learning about their position in society;
  
• to help migrants to achieve inclusion;
  
• to engage in intercultural learning;
  
• to bring generations together to learn from one another and/or work
  
• together;
  
• to explore ways of advocacy for learning for disabled people;
  
• to establish a new life on their own;
  
• to work for social inclusion in a multicultural society;
  
• to break down barriers amongst residents and foster a sense of
  
• belonging through community involvement and volunteering;
  
• to provide and support services provided by the voluntary sector for
  
• hard-to-reach groups;
  
• to commit themselves to work in their community;
  
• to commit themselves to working for gender equality.
  

This list is not exhaustive. You may consider other examples (of active citizenship) in the light of the criteria outlined above.

What do we expect?

• a transnational project or initiative on active citizenship with at least
  three countries involved;
  
• a transnational project or initiative that has been completed or is close
  to completion;
  
• a description of your project:
  • what were the main goals of the project?
    
  • what you actually did and how you did it;
    
  • which was (were) your target group(s)?
    
  • what was special about your way of working and what processes or partnerships were important?
    
  • which aspect of active citizenship you focused on;
    
  • how you got people involved.
    
• some explanation about the impact:
  • what the impact was for the participating organisations and the target group(s);
    
  • how you recognised and how you tracked success;
  • what you have learned from this piece of work – what would you do again or differently next time;
  • whether the project would work without partners from other countries;
  • and finally: The Wow! Factor: What made this project special and what could others learn from it?
    

A special prize will be awarded for an outstanding out-of-Europe project on Active Citizenship for a Democratic Society.

Conditions:
Entries must be received by Monday 3rd October 2005, at:
EAEA main office, to the attention of Ms Ellinor Haase, Rue Liedts 27, B-1030 Bruxelles
Tel. + 32 2 513 52 05; fax + 32 2 513 57 34; e-mail: eaea-main@eaea.org

Send your project description together with the completed form to the EAEA. You may submit a description of your project in one of the following languages: English, French, German, and Spanish.

What do we offer?

• the Award – a specifically designed piece of art for the coordinating organisation and certificates for all partners;
  
• an invitation to 2 persons of the winning organisation to the EAEA General Assembly 2005, including travel and accommodation; an invitation to the partners, 1 person per organisation, to the EAEA General Assembly, covering either travel or accommodation. The EAEA General Assembly this year takes place in Norway;
  
• publicity for the winning project and for all other projects submitted via the EAEA website, the mailing list to more than 100 organisations in 34 European countries, and reports.

More info: www.eaea.org/news.php?k=5758

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8. Announcements

a. Seminar on Global Citizenship and Language Learning: Education in a Multilingual World (York, 20–25 November 2005).

The seminar will offer participants the opportunity to:

• explore together the relationship between citizenship and language teaching and learning
  
• understand current thinking on citizenship education in a global context
  
• relate pedagogical good practice in language teaching with active citizenship
  
• develop appropriate practical action plans based on shared principles
  

The event will be interactive and participatory with an emphasis on sharing examples of good practice from the participants’ own contexts. It will build on the British Council international seminar held in March 2003: Language teaching and citizenship in international contexts

For further details please contact Irina Gecheva at yellowteam.seminars@britishcouncil.org
Tel: + 44 (0)1865 302710 Fax: +44 (0)1865 516590 or see
www.britishcouncil.org/seminars-english-0594.htm for fee information and draft programme

Irina Gecheva, Project Manager, British Council Seminars, 1 Beaumont Place, Oxford OX1 2PJ, UK

T +44 (0)1865 302710; F +44 (0)1865 516590; irina.gecheva@britishcouncil.org; www.britishcouncil.org/seminars

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b. Research network on children's rights: call for papers

International Interdisciplinary Conference on Children's Rights
An appraisal of the Children's Rights Convention. Theory meets practice
Ghent, Belgium, 18-19 May 2006

The Belgian IAP research network on children's rights invites you to participate in an international conference on children's rights to be held in Ghent, Belgium on 18-19 May 2006.

In 2006, more than fifteen years will have passed since the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child came into force. Since then, many child-related studies in several scientific fields made an attempt to interpret and clarify the meaning and scope of the Convention. Meanwhile, also fieldworkers tried to use the Convention as a tool for securing rights to children.
The conference aims at evaluating the progress and achievements of the Convention, and at exploring the challenges ahead in realising children's rights. It will in particular do so by creating an open forum where academics can meet and exchange views with other professionals, dealing with children's rights in a more practical way.

Major sub-themes of the conference include:

1. enforcement of the UNCRC at international, regional and domestic level,
2. the right to (human rights) education,
3. rights of children in especially difficult circumstances such as refugee children and children belonging to minorities,
4. juvenile justice and detention,
5. participation rights of children,
6. children's right to life, health and health care,
7. children's rights in relation to their family,
8. exploitation of children.