Bring Human Rights Close to Home

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Celebrate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ 60th

by Tom Morris

Eleanor Roosevelt, civil rights leader, helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Where after all do universal human rights begin? In small places close to home. So close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt

This fall—the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)—is the perfect opportunity to turn your classroom into one of those “close to home” places referred to by Eleanor Roosevelt.

As the Universal Declaration anniversary date approaches on Human Rights Day, December 10, media coverage and UDHR special events will increase, making it easy to connect classroom activities to human rights concerns in the wider world.

One particularly exciting UDHR anniversary project—called Small Places, after Roosevelt’s statement—is being organized by the respected human rights organization Amnesty International.
Imagine Small Places as a festival of many close to home school and community-based arts activities—music, writing, theatre, visual arts, video and film, web arts, debates—aimed at celebrating human rights successes and strengthening support for human rights across a new generation.

Small Places runs from September to December 10th and is colourfully online at smallplaces.ca. In particular, follow the link for Educators.

Make Human Rights Cool
Small Places is the perfect vehicle to engage youth in human rights awareness and action.

Its medium is a mélange of expressive projects and events that will bring alive a variety of curriculum subjects. It connects youth across Canada and the world around an historic moment. It enables participants to actively champion a specific individual or community at risk of harm. And it focuses on critical values such as tolerance, diversity and responsibility.

Perhaps most important from a youth perspective, Small Places has a very big cool factor because of the involvement of well-known Canadian and global musicians such as The Edge.

Get Creative for Human Rights: Imagine the Possibilities
• Writing and visual arts students participate in a short story or poetry writing or poster-making project. Focus on a student-initiated subject or the UDHR Articles or a theme such as “When I imagine a world that respects human rights, I see….” Present the results on Human Rights Day, December 10th.

• ESL students champion a Small Places individual or community at risk, write letters to governments in their own language, help classmates with translation, and send messages of hope to the people they champion.

• Theatre students develop dramatic or reading scripts on the UDHR, one of the champion cases, or a “close to home” human rights theme such as bullying or discrimination, then present their work on Human Rights Day.

• Legal studies, World Issues and Civics students organize debates on topical human rights concerns, such as child soldiers or holding Omar Khadr at Guantánamo.

• Music and writing students study the rich history of human rights song-writing, then write and present their own songs or verse in their class or possibly in school “coffee houses” or other venues.

• Social Studies students take a deeper, more personalized look at a specific country through the life of a Small Places champion case, such as women civil rights activists in Zimbabwe or an imprisoned monk in Myanmar/Burma.

• The student social issues group you advise hosts a 60-minute (one-minute-a-UDHR year) lunch-time music, improv or film fest.

Or turn your school into a Small Places happening: you and colleagues support a school-wide mural project, presented around Human Rights Day and focused on what the UDHR means in your school.

Easy to Participate, Helpful Resources
Participate in Small Places by registering your activity—at no cost—at smallplaces.ca.

Online registration means Amnesty International will publicize your activity and connect your students to Small Places events across Canada and around the world.

Your students can also participate in cool music, arts and UDHR contests, as well as other special online features. And you have access to direct Amnesty International email and phone support for your project.

Download the Small Places activity “Planning Kit” for educators and youth with its step-by-step project planning guide, activity ideas, publicity tips, how to involve local musicians, and budget and task charts. Smallplaces.ca also includes downloadable backgrounders and petitions on each of the featured individuals and communities at risk, plus other teaching aids.

Many resources are free and can be downloaded from smallplaces.ca or ordered from materials@amnesty.ca. Have questions? Email smallplaces@amnesty.ca.

Amnesty’s Human Rights Day Write-a-thon
Hundreds of Canadian schools participate in Amnesty International’s annual global write-a-thon on December 10th. Watch for the write-a-thon again this year—in fact it is the ultimate Small Places activity!—and plan to combine human rights letter writing with the music, writing, drama or visuals emerging from your Small Places project.

Sixty years ago the world’s governments promised human rights for all. Today that promise is too often ignored, broken and undermined, and human rights defenders are attacked rather than protected.

Mark this year by engaging your students in expressive, exciting, inspiring forms of human rights awareness. Bring human rights close to home with Small Places.