his program provides undergraduate students with the tools to engage others on issues of human rights, and to hone their skills as leaders and serve as agents of positive change in their communities. Students are trained by Institute personnel, in conjunction with national and international leaders involved in human rights advocacy and education.
The program adopts the principle of participatory involvement that allows participants to be actively engaged in their education rather than be passive recipients of information. This approach is intended to nurture participants’ consciousness about human rights and in the process help enhance their sense of human dignity and self-worth.
The objectives of the program are:
To inspire people to embrace the notion of a common humanity, despite differences in social, political, religious, and economic backgrounds.
To encourage understanding and/or concern or empathy for those who experience violations of human rights.
To transmit basic knowledge about and information contained in the major international instruments of human rights.
To assist participants to think critically about their individual and social conditions and in the process engage them in human rights advocacy.
To educate affected individuals and groups about their human rights.
To develop rights-based materials that can be disseminated to raise awareness about human rights.
To conduct training, seminars, and workshops to inform people about issues related to rights in particular areas or environments.
To provide information and/or examples that demonstrate the consequences of actions based on ignorance, punitive attitudes, prejudice, and intolerance.
