Human Rights Workshops for Students

 

Contact:
Karolina Oponowicz
e-mail:

Program description

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What are the Human Rights Workshops for Students?

 

The Human Rights Workshops for Students are a Foundation program, the first edition of which took place in the academic year 2000/2001. It is intended for students of various (not just humanities and social studies) majors and various Warsaw universities. (The classes take place during the week in Warsaw and students from other cities will not be able to travel to them.)

 

The program's objective is to disseminate knowledge from the scope of human rights and their protection and to develop skills necessary for social activists during their work.

The graduates of the Human Rights Workshops for Students can apply for the Human Rights School two years after completing their studies and under the condition that they prove the appropriate use of the knowledge and skills acquired during the Workshops.

 

The workshops are free of charge

 

What is the Workshops' program?

The Workshops are a year-long (two-semester) course that includes a total of about 100 hours of classes. It can be divided into 3 parts:

• The first one focuses on theory. It consists in a review of the fundamental issues from the scope of human rights: human rights history and philosophy, particular rights and liberties, Polish and international instruments of their protection, and the rights of people, who belong to particular groups (national minorities, prisoners, refugees). The execution of this part of the program is scheduled for the winter academic semester.
• The second part is practical. It is held during the study trip session that usually takes place in March and lasts for about a week. During the workshops "The ability to act effectively in the public interest", the participant acquires, among others, the following skills: strategic planning, including goal setting, target group selection, method selection, evaluation, etc. In this part of the Workshops, the students begin work on their individual projects, the preparation of which is one of the conditions for the successful completion of the course.
• The third part is a combination of practical and theoretical elements. It provides the opportunity to expand and supplement the knowledge and skills gained during the previous parts of the Workshops. Apart from the program's fixed items, like e.g. workshops on human rights monitoring, the classes in this part reflect the interests of the participants and may concern the circumstances concerning human rights in particular countries, the Foundation's programs or the situation surrounding minority groups in Poland. The program for this part is established within the suitable timeline after becoming acquainted with the participants' preferences. The performance of this part of the program usually takes place more or less during the summer academic semester.

The classes (apart from the study trip) are held on a weekly basis and consist of a series of two-hour-long (or in exceptional circumstances, four-hour-long) meetings that take place on Wednesday afternoons, as well as weekend workshops (several weekends during the year).

 

They are carried out by specialists in the particular domains, discussed here, mainly HFHR employees and co-workers, graduates of the School for Human Rights and academic lecturers. The classes consist of lectures, as well as exercises, which help to fix the acquired information, films, discussions and simulations.

A certificate stating the completion of the Workshops will be provided under the following conditions:

• Appropriate attendance,
• Participation in the study trip session,
• Successful completion of the examination based on the classes' theoretical part (this usually takes place at the end of February or at the beginning of March, before the study trip session),
• Performance of an individual project - practical actions in support of human rights (we will include a description of last year's projects here very soon).