Themes: Human Rights
Objectives
- To increase the participants’ understanding concerning human rights of young people
- To create an awareness on young people about the human rights
- To make familiar participants about the connection with citizenship and human rights
- To make participants think about the implications of not being able to reach out the human rights
Duration and Planning
- 15 minutes : Discussion
- 45 minutes : Universal Declaration of Human Rights of Youth
- 20 minutes : Presentations
- 10 minutes : Debriefing
Materials
- Paper Tape
- Flipcharts
- Board markers
- Pastel Paint
Recommended Method
In this section, we will initiate a discussion about the human rights of young people to make the young people discuss and make them understand the relationship between the citizenship and the human rights. First, the facilitator provides an information about the idea of citizenship by writing, “Citizen” in the middle of the flipchart and asks the participants:
- Who is citizen?
- Where the word “citizen” derived from?
- What rights and responsibilities do we have?
- What would you demand as citizen?
After wrapping up the discussion, the facilitator provides the model of T.H. Marshall by referring that the citizenship is connected with the three segments of the rights : social rights, civil rights, political rights. (please consult the theoretical framework of this book concerning the definitions). Afterwards, asks participants to provide their definitions of citizen, their rights and the demands from the state. The division between the state and the government is highly important for the participants that they understand the differentiation between the both aspects.
During this process, the facilitator divides the participants into the 5 separate groups and gives the participants to answer the same questions as a group and come up with a framework as a group. In each group, there should be 1 person per country so that the participants can develop a universal concept on the human rights issues by implementing the workshop in that way. Before starting to the group work, the trainer provides the framework of “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and asks the participants to develop their own declaration “Universal Declaration of Human Rights of Youth” to initiate the discussion and the participants develop their declarations by using the same format that the UN has according to the provided format by the trainers ( “Facilitators’ Note” ).
Each group presents their declaration and the rest of the group members provide feedbacks for the developed declarations. During this process, the discussion provides a road map for the young people to make them discuss about the new approaches to the human rights of youth. In that sense, the participants as well as understand the differences between the countries such as in Turkey, there is military service obligation which is imposed to the young people ,but in any other countries do not. By developing in an international context, they can tackle with these challenges together and develop a joint document.
After the presentations, the facilitator presents the framework put in place by “United Nations Human Rights Office of High Commissioner” to the participants. In that way, they see the developed model and have a clearer understanding for the overall week.
Facilitators Note
The facilitator should make him/herself familiar with the Universal Decleration of Human Rights so that s/he can provide information in a clearer way and keep on eye on the process of the development of the declarations by the participants.
Additional Information and Readings
Human Rights of Young People : https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Youth/YouthrightsbrieferOHCHR.pdf
