Human Rights Education A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions This chapter focuses on implementation. It does not provide a template for human rights education activity but rather concentrates on the features of successful implementation. (For those looking for ideas to build into an education programme, Part IV includes a range of activities for various contexts.) At this point, it may also be useful to revisit the principles of human rights education discussed in Chapter 5. As with previous stages, participants should be involved in contributing to the implementation of the education activity. The extent to which this is possible, or appropriate, will vary according to the education context. For example, in a presentation to a gathering of new teachers at a college graduation, having participants indicate with a show of hands their familiarity with human rights, or taking one minute to discuss a human rights topic with the person they are sitting next to, may be as much participation as is possible. On the other hand, a workshop with a group of women in a community experiencing gender discrimination will be mostly, if not completely, interactive and participatory. It is generally agreed that using effective participatory processes is critical for the empowerment of individuals or groups at risk of human rights violations, to identify and claim their rights and for strengthening the knowledge and ability of duty bearers to act on their responsibilities. This chapter focuses on the elements necessary to ensure that human rights education implementation is effective and that the participation of all is maximized. The elements include: • identifying and carrying out the appropriate human rights educator role and function • recognizing diverse learning styles • creating effective learning environments for an activity • pacing/timing a programme or activity • the language and messaging used in written and oral communications • monitoring the progress of a programme or activity • the human rights educator’s reflective practice, supervision and self-care. These elements are applicable across all human rights education activities, but it will take creativity to apply them to some circumstances. How would you ensure, for example, that an educational pamphlet meets diverse learning styles or creates an effective learning environment? How will you clearly define the human rights education role with an online course that has a large social media component? 7.1. THE ROLES AND FUNCTIONS OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATOR Human rights education requires the educator to have a number of roles and functions: communicator, trainer, facilitator, networker, advocate for human rights and community developer. Each of these requires a different set of skills and each will result in a different outcome. The planning and design stage outlined in Chapter 6 will have analysed the human rights situation (situation analysis), identified the resources required (inputs), decided on the human rights education method and who the participants are (outputs) and what the activity seeks to achieve (outcomes). In order to effectively implement the activity, the educator will need to identify the most appropriate role to take in order to reach the desired and outcome. 66