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Description
Since 2015, the climate in Poland has deteriorated for raising awareness of human rights and for human rights activists as well. Only an integrated approach which incorporates an impact on public awareness on the one hand and on decision-makers on the other, can change this. The project will serve to build pro-human rights attitudes among young people, and at the same time enhance the advocacy skills of activists themselves. Under the project, a publication will be produced for teachers on the challenges that exist with respect to human rights in Poland. The publication will contain tools for educating young people and involving them in action to promote human rights. The publication will be supplied to at least 1 000 teachers. There will also be a series of offline and online meetings for 20 teachers, 50 workshops for 500 young people, and five mentoring workshops for 50 young people to train participants to conduct five of their own human rights promotion campaigns. In addition, human rights activists'' advocacy skills will be improved. In this regard, training is envisaged for ten leaders of watchdog and advocacy measures, as well as ten watchdog initiatives, and a guide on how to conduct local monitoring of human rights and take measures towards local authorities for change. The publication will be received by 100 organisations. The partner in the project, Amnesty International Norway, will play an advisory and consulting role, by sharing knowledge and best practices. In the project, a study tour will also be organised by the partner, to learn about the methods and achievements in education regarding human rights and intercultural education.
Summary of project results
The project responds to the problem of shrinking space for human rights education and social movements working for human rights in Poland. Since 2015, the possibility to raise these topics in schools has been systematically limited by the activities of ultra-right organisations and the ruling majority, conducting aggressive hate campaigns against minorities, making changes to educational law or announcing the implementation the verification of organisations operating in schools. All of this has a chilling effect, with some teachers abandoning the subject for fear of a reaction from headmasters and parents. Those from small towns are in a particularly difficult situation, as they often operate in a sense of loneliness.
The project carried out a series of competency-building activities in the field of human rights education, activism and advocacy. 21 teachers took part in a series of 5 trainings and subsequently delivered a total of 88 workshops to 1,437 young people. A publication on challenges to human rights in Poland and tools for youth work was produced. School youth (5 teams from different localities) took part in workshops and a mentoring programme and planned their own campaigns using the design thinking method. A competition for schools for a freedom of expression action was also organised. 9 activist people participated in training courses on monitoring human rights and conducting advocacy activities, and some of them implemented their own initiatives. An additional activity was a mailing course on the basics of advocacy for 40 people. The project was concluded with a Youth Human Rights Congress. The Norwegian section of Amnesty International was a partner in the project and supported the Project Promoter in developing monitoring and evaluation tools for the activities and provided training. A study visit to Norwegian human rights organisations was also organised.
Teachers were equipped with knowledge, strategies and tools in the field of human rights education and mobilising youth for activism. The project was also a space for the exchange of good practices and mutual support in situations of declining motivation, anxiety and professional burnout. Youth and activists improved their knowledge of human rights and their skills to respond to human rights violations, as well as their skills to cooperate in dealing with human rights violations in the local environment.
The project Your Voice Matters – Learn and Act as a continuation of the project Your voice matters – Young people defend human rights! addressed two key issues: the lack of connection between human rights and the activities and communications of NGOs working on topics from current public debates, such as protests, climate change, or abortion; and the absence of effective methods for working with young people, which would enable teachers to better support youth in fostering social engagement and civic activity.
As part of the project, a webinar titled "Your Organisation and Human Rights – How to Incorporate Them into Everyday Work?" was conducted, along with training sessions for teachers on supporting young people in designing and implementing their own actions, projects, or campaigns using the design thinking method. Additionally, a reprint of the publication "Your Voice Matters! Young People Defend Human Rights" was produced, and its digital version was disseminated (357 individuals received the publication).
Summary of bilateral results
The cooperation with Norwegian Amnesty International was very successful, although our Polish context is quite different from theirs. Thanks to the cooperation, we learned about Kirkpatrick - a model of evaluation. We had several online meetings about this method. In addition, our partner prepared for us a study visit to Norway, during which we received training on short forms of human rights education (so-called nanolearning). They are successfully using this method in Norway. They from us learned more about how we deal with the shrinking space for human rights education in Polish schools.