What Do We Already Know About Human Rights?

What do we already know about human rights?

1Find someone who ……………………. (insert name) can name a human right.

2Find someone who ………………….. can name an organization which campaigns for human rights

3Find someone who ……………….. has read a book, watched a programme or seen a film which was about human rights. (Rights might not have been explicitly mentioned. See if you can.)

4Find someone who ………………… can explain how Fairtrade and human rights are linked.

5Find someone who …………………. is concerned about a human rights abuse.

6Find someone who …………………. knows what the letters UNCRC stand for.

7Find someone who …………………. can explain why 1948 is a significant date for human rights.

8Find someone who …………………… knows about UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools Award.

9Find someone who …………………… can mime a human right?

10Find someone who …………………… has enabled another human to enjoy a right today. Which right and how?

Debrief

1) UN Declaration on Human Rights (1948); UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) whilst not the only instruments of human rights, documents are perhaps amongst the better known ones.

2) Organisation which campaigns for human rights could include: Amnesty/Survival International/Tourism Concern/Stonewall (examples of international advocacy work).

3) The book, programme or film about human rights. Rights might not have been explicitly mentioned, but the trick here is to get participants to put on those human rights lenses and see if they can recognise which rights are in evidence or missing. You could discuss a character in terms of rights and when rights are in conflict, e.g.

●Andrea in Jacqueline Wilson’s The Suitcase Kid, which is aboutAndrea’s right to be listened to and consulted about decisions that affect her.(Articles 12 and 13.)

●Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak, a collection of children’s testimonies by Deborah Ellis about hopes, aspirations and the impact of conflict. Conflict impacts on many rights, e.g. play; education. (Article 2 All rights apply to everyone, whatever their race, religion or abilities.)

●KS3/4 To Kill a Mocking Birdand Harper Lee’s right to fair trial.

●KS2 Elizabeth Laird’s two books: Lost Riders,about children taken to work as camel jockeys and whose names are changed to conceal them (Article 7 Right to a name; Article 36 Freedom from slavery); A Little Piece of Ground, about a Palestinian boy who just wants a safe place to kick his football with his mates. (Articles 38, 31 and 17.)

4)Fairtrade and human rights: Article 23 UNDHR Right to work, to be free to choose your work and to get a salary that allows you to live and support your family, making it easier for your children to enjoy their right to an education. Fairtrade should make this easier.

6) UNCRC:United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

7)1948: United Nations Declaration on Human Rights.

8) UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools Award:A whole-school award which aims to develop a rights respecting culture in a school where the ethos is underpinned by the Rights of the Child.

9) Mime a human right: Tricky to do on your own.Easier in pairs or threes.Whether we enjoy our rights or not can come down to the behaviour, attitudes and actions of those around us.

10) Did you: listen to someone today; teach someone something new; tell someone about their rights or act on an injustice? Then you have enabled another human being to enjoy a right today or brought them a step closer to it.