Human Rights Close to Home: Program Overview

• In Event: Human rights close to home: human rights education for civic action

Proposal

This presentation provides an overview of the Human Rights Close to Home (HRCH) initiative, detailing the program goals, design, and projected outcomes. As mentioned in the panel overview, HRCH aims to achieve five primary goals:
to develop and implement a novel human rights and civics education model, focused on civic engagement and grounded in human rights education principles and practices;
to foster teachers' capacity to design and implement engaged human rights and civics learning opportunities in their classrooms, schools, and communities;
to develop youth leaders in human rights and civic engagement;
to support community-level democratic engagement and change; and
to iterate and disseminate the HRCH model beyond Connecticut.
To accomplish these goals, HRCH has been designed around the implementation of workshops and professional development opportunities across three years, namely the implementation of a summer academy for K-12 educators and Connecticut youth ages 15-19.
In this summer academy, participants will engage in ten days of intensive presentations, workshops, dialogues, lectures, films, and place-based learning opportunities. Educator participants will engage leading human rights scholars, teachers, and advocates, develop supportive professional networks, and join with young people for intergenerational learning. In addition to gaining new insights into critical human rights issues and approaches, participants develop and implement projects rooted in their school and local community concerns and commitments.
Connecticut youth participants will engage in a simultaneous summer residential leadership academy focused on human rights and civic engagement. Rooted in culturally sustaining approaches, the two-week academy provides a forum for learning and sharing among diverse youth through exposure to expert human rights educators and practitioners, inquiry into contemporary human rights challenges, and supported development of action projects in their schools and home communities. Youth participants receive ongoing mentorship and support through the following year.
Moreover, participants will continue to be supported throughout the academic year following the summer academy. Educator participants will have access to monthly meetings in order to engage with each other and program facilitators as they implement human rights education in their classrooms. They will be able to share resources and communicate throughout the year on a private social media group in order to sustain and strengthen a community of human rights educators. Youth participants will work with mentors around their civic action projects throughout the year. Mentors may be undergraduate or graduate students, community-based organizations, or teachers as relevant. The youth participants will have opportunities to continue to engage with HRCH in years two and three in roles such as presenters, facilitators or mentors for the incoming youth. By the end of the three three-year program, our goal is to have supported and cultivated a community of practice with teachers and a supportive network for youth leaders to continue their human rights education work at the classroom, school, and community level.

Authors

• Glenn Mitoma, University of Connecticut

• Jacob Skrzypiec, University of Connecticut