Children and human rights education and protection in Country in transition       To view the Presentation... Microsoft Power Point - 3,82 Mb
Vladimir Kalinin Smorgon Information Centre on Children and Human Rights Education. Belarus

Human  rights are supposed to guide the social and political life not only for European states but for NIS as well.
Membership in the Council of Europe and  the resulting ratification of the European Convention for the protection of HR and Fundamental Freedoms’ convey this choice. Unfortunately ,Belarus is not  a member of CE or EU by different reasons. We are the only one state, which is geographically  belongs to Europe but isolated at the moment.
HRE should be a priority in all states including us indeed. Human Rights Education  is essential to active citizenship in a democratic  and pluralistic society and we are trying to build such a society  after  the collapse of the USSR. We would like to teach our pupils to be able to think critically, make moral choices, take principled position on issues, and devise democratic courses of action. We have  a National plan of action in the field of HRE till 2010,National Committee on HR and  are going to introduce Ombudsman office like in Europe.
We do believe that only humans  who understand HR  will work  to secure and defend them for themselves and others. But in order to be involved  in this way, it is necessary to be informed .
When we are dealing with human rights, it is customary to introduce the major normative texts, particularly the declarations and conventions. It is right and fair that students  be aware of the existence of these  texts , that  they know that, at certain times in history, people came together and made a point of declaring , expressing, writing or putting into text form , for themselves  and   for others, certain  standards  for judgment and action.
What we are doing  at the local level in Belarus in the field of children and human rights education at  school?
We have so called special course on human rights at every school and it is part of our curricula.
I have to mention that  Smorgon information center is  a partner of ministry of education experiment  for HRE  for the last 4 years.
It means that we have to create any activities, actions, lessons on HR, cross subject teaching HR(though history, literature, English and etc.)  in cooperation with and for teachers , pupils and parents and  send annual reports to our ministry for analyses and dissemination good practices among our secondary schools .
Experiences lived  at school are essential I guess , for at least three reasons:
*They form a world that is shared among all students and thus constitute a convenient starting point  for work in the classroom. But we have to remember that even  if it  were conducted outstandingly well from a theoretical viewpoint in the classroom, HRE would have no meaning whatsoever for students –or could even be discredited completely – if in the classroom itself ,or  in the rest of the educational institution ,the students found themselves in places and situations where they were without rights or subjected  to power struggles and violence, with no defense and no recourse. Many studies  show that students have  a strong desire for respect; they want to be listened to, taken seriously , and  not belittled by ironic or hurtful words and etc.
During discussions , a great number of them will speak out against the practices and words which upset  or injure them; even  the youngest among them express feelings of injustice or even consider themselves  as victims of the actions of older individuals ,completely without protection.

• also, if the school’s mission is to educate  about HR, its  functioning must be examined from  the  viewpoint of those rights and values which go with them. So , SICCHRE was created as an institution  which is specifically developed  and organized to encourage participation , initiative and dialogue: class councils, school councils ,regular opportunities  built  into timetable when class life is analyzed and regulated , institutions for handling incidents  and resolving conflicts , time  and space  for discussion, participation in ICT projects  intercultural cooperation and collaboration with colleagues and peers abroad.

• a unique characteristic of HRE  is that  its aim is to teach personal and  social attitudes and behaviors all through  life, which  implies both  reflecting on those  attitudes and behaviors ,and having mechanisms  which enable each of us  to experience his  rights and his obligations.

In this way HR are very powerful weapon in the individuals hands, especially in country in transition and it is very important if you have some support at the local and national level.
Ministry of education and National Committee for UNESCO in Belarus supported our school  in joining UNESCO ASP  because of our work at the local and International level. Drawings, essays ,poster making competitions are very important and exciting for our pupils as well. We have done such activities in cooperation with UNICEF mission in Belarus for 37 schools in our region.
We have to pass through the period of our development towards the democracy which you already passed just 100 or more years ago, but we have only 10 or 15 years to do that taking into account our culture ,history and way of life.  So , we are trying to create and implement new approaches in teaching and exploring children and human rights within schools and society at large. I think that very interesting  is working  our volunteer school service “Voice of Ombudsman”, created 4 years ago at the base of gymnasium N4.
We created this service in cooperation with school Council and every grade has their own representative in this service and they are working as one team of children rights ombudsmen in school.  How is it working in the field ?
Any questions and sharp issues  pupils ,teachers could ask  or write on the paper and put them into special box for such business which is placed in well  known place for the rest of the school.
Later team of pupils, teachers, parents analyze questions and deliver them to the responsible people for preparations and answers before the rest of the school. So , we got quite flexible feedback with school administration and the most important point is that pupils could see that system is working and their voice could be heard and clear answers are coming quickly.
We have gymnasium newsletter which edited by students and  some  interested teachers and disseminated by them as well. You could read about all school issues and news and could get information about future activities and actions. 

We are teaching about HR and for HR, what means that  learning about HR is largely cognitive, including rights history ,documents, implementation mechanism. Education for HR means understanding and embracing  the principles  of human equality and dignity and the commitment to respect and protect the rights of others. It is not so much what we know, as the way we act. We are carrying out competitions for our students like Code of  Class conduct and Constitution of your future school  and they are  very excited competitions as well. It has sense  for HRE teachers  participate in such activities because they could discuss with their pupils all issues which are in the field of interest for their class and listen to pupils and create together rules for class and put them on the wall for viewing for  all pupils and teachers. You could use such job for  talking to pupils if somebody do not want respect others but was working and voting for such Conduct, his/her peers could say that you are wrong or right ,it depends on the case.
In this way we are trying to follow developed democracies example how to do that, because it is normal when HRE is at the very heart of all education , once one  believes that the objective of education is development of a free and autonomous individual, socially involved  and responsible.
We are emphasizing respect and tolerance in our school system because they are first understood  and explained  as means of smoothing relations among individuals at the School: respect others and tolerate differences ,accept the idea  of reciprocity according to which,  to safeguard their rights, it is still best that individuals respect  those of others.
As a result of the 4 years of our participation in the experiment we created Children Rights Passport for pupils ( but it is very informative and useful for all teachers and parents as well).We made a compilation of CRC, National Law on children ,UDHR just to acknowledge  target group with their rights and responsibilities  (about local and International aspect of them),so you could easily compare International HR standards and what do we have at the local level. Unfortunately, SICCHRE has lack of resources just to publish Passport for 37 schools, education department is in the same situation. 

Examination of school life  is linked to the construction of concepts. In order  for this  construction  to be possible ,every experience  and every situation lived and taken into consideration in HRE  must lead on to an exercise in reflection, analysis and formalization.
Debate is also an opportunity for changing oneself , for accepting the thoughts of another in order to enrich one’s own. We were living for more than 70 years when the only one values ideas, and approaches ,political party and ideology had been existed; so it is extremely important for us as teachers and for our pupils to have this possibility to hear different point of views, compare information from different sources for taking responsible decision.
Human rights do not  in any way claim to  explain the  meaning of life. They express certain principles on which to build  our rules  for communal living. They are the only construction available today for establishing rules  for living together on a global scale , in a world where people and goods  are circulating ever more freely and our societies are characterized by cultural diversity. We do hope that in the nearest future we will be an equal part of European and World family as well ,because it is nonsense that country which was one of the co-founders of UN system excluded from economical and political screen in Europe and world. 

Our cooperation and collaboration with media ,TV and radio helps us to disseminate new information about children and human rights as widely as possible.  Most active pupils are taking part in the peer education courses on children and HRE and after the training programme they are helping to their teachers carry out interesting activities in classroom.
Last year team of our pupils took part in the USA competition “One day of my school life” and got the third place and was awarded by Certificate as well. Ireland is going to help us to establish childhelpline at the base of SICCHRE and it will be the first line in our republic.
After our collaboration with Austria business school in Vienna we attended the school and created Language Portfolio project ,HRE activities and actions.  We planted a Tree of Peace  and Friendship with Austria and  after the tragedy in Belsan this Tree will be as a symbol for all our people that it is so important to save peace ,tolerance and respect each other ,because  in other case we have not chance to survive in a situation of global terror and violence.
We are teaching our students to remember people who died during WW2 and inviting our veterans into our classes just to listen to them and remember the price of our common victory against fascism and tyranny.
During the such  hard and dramatic transformation as collapse of the whole country and system at large our children and women are suffering much more than others. We have a family crisis at the moment a lot of pupils who are excluded from social life ,who have deviation and delinquent  behavior. But in our case ,in a  situation when we have lack of contacts ,information, materials concerning HRE at school and when people just ten years ago were afraid even to mention the words HR because it was a political issue ,I have to say that most families are not upheld by  the HR values and principles and  more broadly our social  environment, so HRE   in country in transition is largely ineffective.
From the other side ,we understand that HR are  first and foremost rights that each person may call upon to act, to seek protection, to  evaluate actions. The development of skills and abilities in the area of argumentation, the analysis of the values which come into play in any decision, the study of specific cases , the implementation of  decision-making mechanisms  which respect those values – these are cornerstones of human rights education which we are trying to follow in.
We are only at the very beginning of the way How to deal with them ,how to integrate them into school and social life again ,so it is very sharp issue to us.
For instance , we founded  for them sport club  “Smorgon Bisons” just to support them and give them chance for integration  through sport activities into school life. It had played positive role, most of our so called difficult pupils change their behavior   because of  help children rights experts, work of social workers , psychologists who are in every school and dealing with such category of pupils.
Another quite  unusual action was to ask for help our military and allowed  to us and our children with deviations to spend month with them  in their military camps and  see what they are doing  and learning. We have very close contact with local juvenile police and we have to attend all investigation procedures concerning our children who violate the law .We are sending our representatives before the court just to defend our pupils in case of criminal affairs.
For preventive  measures we are arranging special excursions for such category of children to the local police station ,detention center and court when there are youth criminal cases . I have to say it has some positive effect on children just to critically analyze their own behavior and try to  change  it. 

In the world  of globalization  and cooperation we are as alone island isolated in Europe , so using ICT and Internet projects are the only one way for collaboration with our colleagues and pupils in Belarus and world at large. We are quite active in this direction despite  only 3 schools have access to the Internet( SICCHRE cover email expenses for the rest of the schools because of help of Italian partners). Internet is  a new and very effective way for our participation in  the different projects around the world. You can see some of our examples of such participation with our partners in Europe on CD.
The last but not least idea is that HR cannot be caught like the flu, education is needed. Let us be clear on this point: teacher training in HRE is rare , insufficient, even non-existent. It is a real test of the willingness of our political  leaders where  the school is concerned.
So, let us take action: HRE is the responsibility of each  and every one of us. It is a difficult  job, but an exciting one. Commitment is an  essential condition for the success of HRE; it calls for conviction, desire, interest on the part of those concerned.
HR are highly inspirational and also highly practical , embodying the hopes and ideals of most human beings and also empowering people to achieve them.
We believe that understanding human rights, a process in which human rights education has a pivotal role, and means empowerment and a better life for many. Only respecting the principles of human rights education in one’s own life can eventually bring about the fundamentals for a common co-existence and respecting the rights of others. So, I think that this  was one of the reasons why UN took a right decision concerning HRE till 2015 and I have to say that SICCHRE is moving in a right direction to advance democracy and rule of law in country in transition.

Thank you very mush for your attention and sympathy during my presentation.