Human Rights Education Associates

http://www.hrea.org/index.php

Authors/Editors

Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) is an international non-governmental organisation that supports human rights learning; the training of activists and professionals; the development of educational materials and programming; and community-building through on-line technologies.

HREA works with individuals, non-governmental organisations, inter-governmental organisations and governments interested in implementing human rights education programmes. The services provided by HREA are for example:

• assistance in curriculum and material development;

• clearinghouse of education and training materials;

• networking human rights advocates and educators.

Description of Contents

HREA's website, an excellent "Portal" for Human Rights Education, offers a variety of information, like the "Headlines" with news concerning the development of human rights-issues all over the world or the activities of HREA itself and reports about so called "Featured Events" with these reports comprising useful links and selected learning materials (see for example the report about the "European Year of Citizenship for Education").

In our description of the site's contents we will, however, concentrate on what HREA offers in the field of teaching materials for EDC with, of course, a special focus on human rights education.

Study Guides

The Study Guides offer introductions to various human rights topics. The guides present definitions, key rights at stake, human rights instruments, and protection and assistance agencies. The guides also offer links to the full text of international treaties relevant for the topic.

They are not suited for direct use in the classroom but are containing valuable background information und links to documents which can be used to prepare worksheets.

Resource Centre

More interest for our purposes deserves the resource centre of HREA, an on-line repository of human rights education and training materials, on-line forums, databases and links to other organisations and resources, comprising four areas:

• Library

• Forums

• Databases

• Links

The "Library" is the most interesting and important section for our purposes.

Library

The library of HREA - as the following screen shot shows - constitutes a real treasure chest for all in search of teaching material for Human Rights Education as an important part of EDC. Most impressing from my point of view is the vast number of target groups covered and the outstanding quality of most of the material offered. Click for example on the category "Primary school" and have a closer look at the lessons about Child Slavery or refugee children and I am sure you will agree with me.

To sum up: I strongly recommend HREA's library and I would like to encourage you to take the time to extensively explore all the publications and materials offered here for teachers of EDC and Human Rights Education!