Human Rights Education A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions
Introduction for users
Purpose of the Manual
The Human Rights Education Manual has been designed to be a resource for human rights educators
and national human rights institutions when they are planning to undertake a human rights education
programme or activity. It aims to support experienced, and not so experienced, human rights educators
by offering a theoretical and practical human rights education resource. The Manual does not propose a
template for human rights education, nor does it suggest that there is a correct way to do human rights
education. Rather it is suggesting that there are multiple ways of undertaking human rights education
and that the best people to decide what those ways may be, are those who are involved in the human
rights education activity and on whom the activity impacts.
A set of videos have been produced to accompany the Manual, Life Lessons: Human Rights Education
and NHRIs.1
In 2017, the APF initiated a project to develop a professional network of human rights facilitators in the
region, the APF Facilitators’ Network (AFN). The aim of the AFN is to enhance the capabilities of NHRIs
to facilitate capacity development initiatives through skilled NHRI staff. The HRE Manual is a resource
for this work. It has been sourced on APF’s online platform, FUSE, and the 2019 update has included
the additional material relevant to the AFN.
About the Manual
The Manual is divided into four sections.
The first introduces human rights, human rights education and the role and mandate of national human
rights institutions to provide human rights education.
The second section overviews the theoretical background to human rights education, its philosophy and
principles. It introduces an approach to the practice of human rights education that is strengthened by
several other human rights education frameworks.
The third section focuses on doing human rights education by introducing methods and processes for
planning and designing an education activity, implementing an activity and evaluating its outcomes.
It includes a specific focus on formal education of children and young people in schools and also
introduces some of the considerations when working in conflict and post-conflict zones.
The final section pulls together a variety of tools that can be used for human rights education activities.
The Manual concludes with a summary of each chapter and a collated list of resources.
The appendices build on the individual chapters and include the United Nations Declaration on Human
Rights Education.
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APF Video Series Life Lessons: Human rights education and NHRIs. Available online at www.asiapacificforum.net/resources/lifelessons-human-rights-education-NHRIs/.