News

COMPASS: A new manual on human rights education with young people
(Oct. 6, 2002)

Compass is the title of the manual on human rights education with young people just produced by the Directorate of Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe. Compass is addressed to all those who are curious and motivated to undertake human rights education but have had no opportunities for training or are short of methods to do it.

Compass is organised in five chapters:

• Chapter 1: familiarises the reader with what we mean by human rights education and how to use Compass.

• Chapter 2: is a collection of more than 49 activities of different levels of complexity, organised according to 15 global themes and address different types of rights.

• Chapter 3: is entitled “Taking action” and contains ideas and tips for those that would like to be more active in promoting human rights.

• Chapter 4: contains what the user needs to know about human rights and international standards and documents.

• Chapter 5: supplies supplementary background information about the 15 themes.

The appendices contain essential information and legal documents, because human rights are also about laws.

The 15 themes are meant to illustrate and represent the areas of major concern regarding human rights for young people across Europe today. Addressing human rights through these themes contributes to a better understanding of the universality and interdependence of human rights and makes human rights education concrete and relatable to the local reality of participants (as opposed to what is happening in other countries). The themes are: Children’s rights, Citizenship, Democracy, Discrimination and Xenophobia, Education, Environment, Gender Equality, Globalisation, Health, Human Security, Media, Peace and Violence, Poverty, Social Rights, and Sport.

Compass is now available in English; the French version – Repères – will be available before the end of the year. The Council of Europe is also producing Russian and Arabic versions. At present it is also being translated into Dutch, Polish and Slovenian by accredited partners.

You can order Compass from the

European Youth Centre Budapest:
eycb.secretariat@coe.int

or from the Council of Europe Publishing Services:
publishing@coe.int; http://book.coe.int

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