Compass Human Rights Education and Youth
Ritsa, Fanis and Antonis started their journey, on the February 18, from Athens, Greece to Fasano, a small city of approximately 38000 inhabitants, in the region of Puglia in Southern Italy. The topic of the course was ‘Compass Human Rights Education for Youth’.
The expectations were high, the feeling was a mix of impatience and curiosity for what we would meet “said Antonis and Fanis. For both of them this was the first participation in a training course for youth workers, for Ritsa it was the second.
“We arrived in the Farmhouse in which the seminar would be held. Vito, a typical Southern Italian farmer, the owner, and Francesco the elegant organizer and head of the host NGO, ASAP, welcomed us. From the beginning, our educators Ana from Albania and Max from Poland, were warm and friendly and started the hard work. They had to build a team with personalities of diverse characteristics, from a real multicultural mosaic of people! And they did it in a creative, fun and non-formal way. A great success!
Every day, every workshop, every moment was a valuable experience for all of us. We had a deeper understanding on the Human Rights topic and the Institutions responsible to observe possible violations, by participating or organizing our creative workshops. Workshops that came out of Compass, a fantastic manual put together by the EU on how to teach Human Rights topics on a non-formal basis, in a creative and experiential way. A manual that all thoughtful people should have in their bookcases. Cooperation, teamwork, active participation, debating and much more were part of all the activities that took place in the blooming rural life of Fasano. The team was getting more and more bonded.
At the end we left full of feelings. One universal feeling was that we belong to something bigger than our daily microcosmos. A feeling that despite our differences in religion, ethnicity, colour, shape, gender, personalities, was reached out to us and to all others european friends, inspiring so many of us to study, teach and apply Humans Rights education in our everyday life. This TC is the passing of a torch from teacher to student who himself becomes the teacher, a community of minds reaching back to antiquity and forward to the future of the European Union
But our mission is not ended in Fasano. This journey was just the beginning. As professionals that work every day with young adults, our duty is to transmit the knowledge to our local communities theoretically and moreover as exemplars with our ACTIONS.”
