Initially, five secondary schools from different states in Peninsular Malaysia were selected as pilot schools. During the second phase of the Project, its reach was expanded to twelve Orang Asli schools chosen by the MOE. The majority of the selected schools were receptive of the ATHAM Project. However, SUHAKAM did encounter some challenges in the earlier phase of implementation. These include the limited time allotted by the participating schools for ATHAM activities, lack of understanding and skills among teachers to impart human rights knowledge to students; and lack of support and commitment of all teachers and students in implementing the program. As for the ATHAM objectives on the integration of human rights practices, they showed greater preference in the integration of ATHAM programmes into the co-curricular activities and the school environment rather than into class activities. Despite these challenges, SUHAKAM continued to engage with the schools, which resulted in several major positive developments as it had observed during its follow up visits to 15 of the selected schools in 2013: • Teachers and students were noticeably more involved in the ATHAM programmes. They showed improved understanding of human rights and child rights in their practices. In addition, teachers and principals showed better understanding and heightened cooperation amongst them. • ATHAM activities conducted have been documented by most of the schools for their reference purpose. This is a good practice as it could transfer knowledge to teachers and students who are not yet involved in the programme. The ATHAM Project has also been repeatedly underscored during the schools’ special celebrations and co-curricular programmes. • The majority of the participating schools utilise the human rights materials and ATHAM resources provided by SUHAKAM. However, they were insufficient as the schools did not have their self-produced human rights materials. SUHAKAM assisted by launching a competition for the schools to produce a human rights booklet. SUHAKAM further supported the schools 36