Amnesty Academy: Education of young people on active citizenship and human rights

Years of experience have taught us at Amnesty International Slovenia that young people are interested in human rights, but they often lack the knowledge and information on what action they can take in this field. A review of study programs shows that even at the university level practical training is not sufficient – even in the fields of study where thorough knowledge of human rights is particularly useful, if not indispensable (policy makers, journalists, social workers, sociologists, teachers, educators …).

At Amnesty Academy, we will equip young people, as well as other interested parties, with the necessary competencies and knowledge, thus contributing to a culture of active citizenship and, consequently, a society in which people care about human rights and fight for them.

An important "pillar" of the project will be an online multimedia education center dedicated to independent human rights education. New knowledge will be acquired by students and secondary and higher education teachers, as well as others who need information on human rights, either professionally or for school work (e.g. secondary school students, NGOs). The content will be adapted to the basic and advanced level of knowledge.

The online education center will contain e-courses, educational videos, presentations, quizzes, etc., covering various content areas. These will include: an introduction to human rights, freedom of expression and assembly, human rights in relation to modern technologies, the environmental crisis and human rights, the right to water and adequate housing, refugee law… We will pay special attention to strategic activism: how to plan human rights actions so that they are most effective and achieve the desired changes.

As part of the project, we will develop and distribute two types of e-newsletters: for young people and for teachers. The latter will inform teachers about current developments in the field of human rights, so they can include them in the educational process. In addition to informing, the e-newsletter for young people will encourage recipients to organize events where they will collect signatures for petitions or discuss current human rights issues, to hold a protest rally, to write an appeal, etc.

The project will also take place at faculties. At the University of Ljubljana, we will carry out the extracurricular activity ‘Amnesty Academy: Human Rights in Practice’, emphasising independent or practical work on human rights. Students will solve human rights challenges independently, in pairs or in groups: we will encourage them to organize events, e.g. on the topic of refugee rights, researching the prevalence of peer violence, analyzing the incidence of hate speech, producing publications and videos on how the climate crisis is affecting human rights, and the like.

At the faculties, the Slovenian Amnesty team as well as guests from abroad will give lectures on various human rights topics as well.