HUMAN RIGHTS: HIDDEN FIGURES Erasmus Project

Project Title

HUMAN RIGHTS: HIDDEN FIGURES

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Gender equality / equal opportunities

Project Summary

We are living in two countries (Italy and Spain) and at a time (21st century) when Human Rights are basically respected. However, this is not so everywhere in our world and it has not been like that through history. Having the opportunity to carry out a project that deals with the learning and understanding of Human Rights will develop in our students a critical mindset. Changing their points of view, making them reflect and empowering them with critical thinking about prejudice is a great motivation for us and it would be our main objective.
The students taking part in the project will be aged 13-15 and we would like to involve a high number of them in each school in the activities of preparation. However, when we talk about mobilities, around 15 students per country per year will have the opportunity to travel. There will be a selection of students according to some criteria that will be published in advance in both schools.
How will we try to reach the objectives of the project?
We would like to implement the tasks in the project with films, books, music, artwork and texts that can help us reach this objective.
During the first year of the project, the starting point will be reading and analysing some articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. By doing this, we will be able to have a base which will allow us to go through situations or examples of rights which are violated in different parts of the world. The next step will be to compare those situations with each of our countries.
Although the conclusion will probably be that violation of Human Rights is not perceived as happening as such in our countries (Italy and Spain), students should become aware that there are certain situations that still are unfair: discrimination towards people from different countries, gender discrimination, bullying, exclusion…
We think that introducing films, books, music, artwork, and analysing them, as sources, as part of our methodology will be very successful. Most of our students are really visual, and trying to explain something without images is hard at some points. That is why our intention is to work with this material and have several sessions through eTwinning or Skype where students will be able to discuss about the films they have watched. We will prepare some activities after each session that will lead them to reflect and discuss, but also to develop a critical attitude.
The second part of the project, to be worked mainly during the second year, will be to analyse different leading figures that are well known for their work in favour of a wider respect of Human Rights. The students will be encouraged to examine figures that – even if famous – are not always the first to come to mind as champions of human rights and also to research stories about local people who for many reasons found themselves in the position of having to make a choice, and the choices they made were in favour of respect, peace, inclusion and the defense of human rights.
The results we would like to attain are both short-term and practical, such as for example:
– pedagogical materials to sensitise teenagers about the issue of human rights,
– a collection of media or artwork promoting the respect of human rights
– the discovery and dissemination (in various formats) of famous leading figures in the field of Human Rights, as well as of ‘hidden figures’ that were involuntary champions of their own or other people’s rights
We also aim at some long-term and more personal results, like the fact that our students will be more tolerant and try to show their opinion about daily issues which are not fair.
We expect these activities to have an impact not only on the students directly involved in the project, but also on all the students at both schools, due to the fact that the results of the activities will be disseminated at different moments for all the community at school: teachers, students and families. Also, the activities that are prepared will be available for all the teachers at school. We think the more people can use and benefit from the activities, the better. It will also be nice to involve primary schools because we believe it is essential that young children start dealing with these topics since they are at primary school if we want them to be tolerant and see inclusion as the only way to be at school, and to live in society.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 62668 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES Parque Goya & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Istituto Comprensivo ‘Cardinale Agostino Casaroli’