Kosovo Mission helps children learn their rights

Knowledge to last a lifetime

The "Our rights" project was initiated by the Slovenian OSCE Chairmanship in 2005 to equip teachers in the OSCE region with a ready-made tool to help children develop a better understanding of their rights. The project is being further supported by the Belgian Chairmanship in 2006.

Blanka Jamnisek of the Slovenian Ministry's OSCE Task Force designed and co-ordinated the pilot project. "Respect for human rights is a key OSCE principle. If we want younger generations to uphold it, we have to teach them about their rights and responsibilities, as well as the rights of others," she says.

Ronald Hooghiemstra, Chief of Human Rights Capacity-Building at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, outlines the long-term benefits of the project. "Children who get this educational opportunity will cultivate knowledge and values about universal human rights that will stay with them for a lifetime.

"More importantly, they will be able to pass these values on to future generations."

Training the teachers

In March this year, fifth-grade teacher Fatmir Haziri and his colleagues from 26 other schools in the Gjilan/Gnjilane region in eastern Kosovo attended an OSCE workshop on applying the curriculum and teaching materials.

"I had no previous experience teaching human rights," says Haziri, who teaches at Agim Ramadani primary school, "but after a close look at the teaching material, I realized its value.

"I especially like the interactive teaching methods, which allow children to express themselves through group work, brainstorming sessions, role plays and simulations," adds Fatmir. He is also very satisfied with the teaching materials, which include teacher manuals, lesson plans, work books and thematic discussion cards.

The curriculum of "Our rights" was developed by a group of Slovenian education and human rights experts at the request of the Slovenian Foreign Ministry.

Applying the curriculum

The curriculum was successfully piloted by 12 OSCE participating States in 2005 and more are currently implementing it. In Kosovo, Gjilane/Gnjilane is the project's testing ground. If satisfied with the results, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology will include it in the fifth-grade curriculum across Kosovo, starting in September.

The beneficiaries will be 10 to 12 year-olds who have yet to learn about, for example, their right to protection from all forms of abuse and violence, their right not to be used as cheap labour and their right not to be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, religion, language or ethnicity.

They will also learn about the importance of tolerance and the right to express their own opinions.

Mother tongue education

Fatmir stresses the importance of ensuring that children can be educated in their native language - one of the rights they will learn about. This is why the curriculum in Kosovo has been translated into Albanian, Serbian and Turkish.

In the coming months, 2,400 students in Gjilan/Gnjilane will join some 11,000 children from South-Eastern and Western Europe and the Caucasus who have already benefited from "Our rights". The curriculum is available in 14 languages so far.

"Now that we are starting to teach children about their rights, we had better start educating the whole society about them," says Fatmir. "This way, we hope that human rights awareness will spread throughout Kosovo's social fabric."