Cross-border Human Rights Education Conference Report 2008
Noeleen Hartigan, Amnesty International Irish Section; Caitríona Ruane, N.I. Minister of Education; Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International UK
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Conference Theme: Mainstreaming Human Rights Education in Schools
This was the fourth annual human rights education conference organised by the LIFT OFF Initiative (Amnesty International, INTO, UTU) in conjunction with the Irish Human Rights Commission and the N.I. Human Rights Commission.
Previous conferences have looked at examples of good practice in human rights education, particularly in the primary sector, and at developing leadership in this field. This year the aim of the conference was to situate human rights education firmly within the framework of international commitments and to identify opportunities where it can be mainstreamed within the formal education sector.
The past couple of years have marked significant anniversaries for human rights treaties, with the 18th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child - its 'coming of age' - in 2007, and 2008 being the 60th anniversary of the UDHR in December. We therefore wanted to use the conference as a vehicle where our governments' commitments under these treaties, particularly in relation to informing children about human rights, could be highlighted. We examined some of the prerequisites for effective mainstreaming, such as the positioning of human rights education within the taught curriculum and in teacher training and the implications that this will have for school governance. As with each of our conferences, there was the chance to meet with teachers involved in LIFT OFF to hear first hand from them of their own experiences in human rights education and the positive impact that this has had on their pupils' interpersonal skills and attitude in class.
The conference was aimed at educationalists and policy makers and consisted of a balance keynote speeches and interactive workshops.
Please find below the presentations from this years conference:
Gunilla Larson Live + Learn Democracy, Belfast 2008
John Carr, General Secretary INTO LIFT OFF Conference 2008
LIFT OFF Keynote Jun Morohashi
LIFT OFF Conference Agenda
Human Rights Education in the Learning Environment
LIFT OFF 2008 Evaluation
LIFT OFF Conference Biographies
