hreusa

Are you interested in a global career and passionate about corporate sustainability strategies? Apply now for UNITAR and Schiller’s Master of Science in Sustainability Management.

The Master of Science in Sustainability Management, developed in collaboration with United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), is designed to empower future leaders to drive sustainable transformation. This program equips you with expertise in carbon footprint management, circular economy, ESG reporting, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), preparing you to create real-world solutions to global sustainability challenges.

Students will study in Paris or Madrid and tackle pressing issues in business, economics, and public policy using a triple-bottom-line approach—people, profit, and planet. You will gain in-depth insights into corporate sustainability, sustainable finance, and resource management by working on real-world projects addressing environmental and social challenges.

Next intake date: October 2025

>> Learn more

Ask An Oral Historian consultation hours are your chance to dive into the intricacies of oral history and learn alongside fellow storytellers. Whether you’re wrestling with a current project or just curious about the craft, these monthly 60-minute working sessions are your space to grow and ask questions in an intimate, small-group setting.

In September, we’re diving deep into narrative editing! It’s an art and it makes oral histories accessible because it’s where raw interviews transform into compelling stories. Together, we’ll explore the delicate balance between preserving authentic voices and crafting engaging narratives—and more importantly, how to honor your narrators while creating stories that truly resonate.

September 25, 2025, 12:00 pm PT / 3:00 pm ET, Virtual

>> Register

HRE USA Partner Organization Highlight

Excerpt from The Advocates’ blog: 

The Political Declaration adopted by the 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) this March delivers a sobering truth: no country in the world has fully achieved gender equality or the empowerment of women and girls. Every five years at the CSW, the international community gathers to assess the lived realities of millions of women and girls and adopt a Political Declaration that sets shared goals and renews global urgency for lasting gender equality.

The 2025 Political Declaration was adopted in the midst of deeply polarized negotiations, with several states, including Argentina, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States, seeking to undermine long-standing language on gender and gender equality. Within this context, the fact that the Declaration was adopted at all signals a degree of resilience in the face of rising global backlash.

The Advocates for Human Rights welcomes the Declaration’s recognition of areas that require further attention, including technology-facilitated gender-based violence, the burden of unpaid care work on women, the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, and the importance of engaging young women as well as men and boys in achieving gender equality.

Yet the Declaration leaves much to be addressed.

The Declaration fails to mention sexual and reproductive health and rights, a critical omission given the growing attacks on these rights globally. For example, the UNFPA has found that there are 58 countries where at least one in four women still cannot make their own decisions about their sexual and reproductive health. Despite this reality, the Declaration overlooks access to abortion, contraception, family planning, comprehensive sexuality education, and the recognition of same-sex marriages and adoptions.

>> Read more

Did You Attend the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women’s Rights?

2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. The Advocates is collecting oral histories from women who attended this conference and want to share their experiences, hopes, and thoughts. We will be recording these interviews as video and podcast features in 2025.

>> If you attended the 1995 Beijing conference and want to share your experiences, please email rpark@advrights.org

Amelia Shindelar, director of the Human Rights Initiative at the University of Minnesota, has published an article in Open Global Rights. In her article, “Healing the Defenders: Grassroots Solutions for Activist Well-Being,” she explores themes of how human rights defenders are navigating some of the most difficult pressures of our time. 

Shindelar highlights issues from systemic inequality and surveillance to burnout and grief as well as how community-led practices of care are a powerful tool for growth and resilience during difficult times. She discusses how collective care, mutual support, and healing justice are important parts of resistance in moments of hardship and struggle. Read the article on Open Global Rights.

Are you already discussing the legacy of the Declaration of Independence in your classroom as you talk about the Constitution and Early American history? Enter your classroom activities into the Civic Star Challenge!  Civic Star Challenge is a groundbreaking initiative from iCivics and the Bill of Rights Institute to celebrate the upcoming 250th anniversary of the nations independence throughout this school year. Each entry is an opportunity win over 400 incredible prizes!

Looking for ideas on how to enter the contest throughout the school year? Discover recommended resources and suggested activities to seamlessly integrate the key themes of the Declaration of Independence into your curriculum, regardless of subject. Don’t miss this once-in-a-teaching-lifetime opportunity!

☆ ☆ ☆ How to Participate ☆ ☆ ☆ 

Engage: Use adaptable lesson plans and activities to teach the powerful themes of the Declaration.

Share: As your students complete activities, submit a simple form to showcase their participation. 

Win: There are four drawing cycles, and every submission is a chance to win. The more you teach and submit, the more chances you have to win! 

Log Your Activities Now!

The American Library Association and Banned Books Week Coalition are pleased to announce the theme for Banned Books Week 2025: “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.” Banned Books Week will take place October 5 – 11, 2025.

With the escalation in attempts to ban books in libraries, schools, and bookstores around the country, George Orwell’s cautionary tale “1984” serves a prescient warning about the dangers of censorship. This year’s theme reminds us that the right to read belongs to all of us, that censorship has no place in contemporary society, and that we must defend our rights.

“The 2025 theme of Banned Books Week serves as a reminder that censorship efforts persist to this day,” ALA President Cindy Hohl said. “We must always come together to stand up for the right to read.”

ALA released the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2024 list and the State of America’s Libraries report. The majority of book censorship attempts now originate from organized movements. Pressure groups and government entities that include elected officials, board members, and administrators initiated 72% of demands to censor books in school and public libraries. The 120 titles most frequently targeted for censorship during 2024 are all identified on partisan book rating sites, which provide tools for activists to demand the censorship of library books. 

Banned Books Week launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of book challenges in libraries, schools, and bookstores.

>> Learn more about the 2025 theme
>> Learn more about Banned Books Week

Since its launch on International Youth Day 2020, UNICEF USA’s Child Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI) has been partnering with cities and counties across the U.S. to ensure children’s voices and rights are at the heart of local governance. Our first cohort includes Boulder (CO), Decatur (GA), Houston (TX), Minneapolis (MN), Prince George’s County (MD), and Alton (IL). As of April 2025, Denver (CO) joined our first post-pilot cohort. We’re proud to share that Houston (2023), Minneapolis (2024), and most recently Decatur (2025) have been officially recognized as the first UNICEF Child Friendly Cities in the United States.

While we aren’t currently accepting applications for formal CFCI partnership (our new cohort has just been selected), we are actively engaging with interested municipalities through our National Learning Community. Over the coming year, we’ll release new resources on child-centered governance and invite participants to webinars and learning exchanges.

Stay connected:

•  Sign up for the Communities for Every Child newsletter for updates on research, advocacy, and opportunities to shape child-friendly communities.
•  Join our CACR LinkedIn Group to collaborate with municipal partners and researchers.

All schools must be a place where students can feel safe and have their identities affirmed in order to thrive. Our students need to know we see them, we hear them, and we support them. This fall, the start of the new school year provides us the opportunity to declare our commitment to students, welcoming them back to the classroom with courage and joy, free from bias, and discrimination.

Inspired by Idaho Educator Sarah Inama’s bravery to keep her “Everyone Is Welcome Here” poster hanging in her classroom, our Everyone is Welcome Here art, sponsored by Advocates for Youth, National Education Association, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Subject To Climate, visibly affirm the commitment of school staff to each students’ right to learn and thrive in a safe and welcoming school – no matter what they look like, where they are from or who they love.

NEA also funds and organizes trainings for NEA members. Request your Racial and Social Training here

>> Get your stickers and posters and show your students Everyone is Welcome Here! 

To support our network of human rights educators, HRE USA provides lesson plans and resources teaching about human rights, through human rights and for human rights.

📚 These lessons and resources are available for free in our Human Rights Education Library and HRE Collections.

💬 HRE USA members also have access to the HRE USA Discussion Forum to share resources, events, and converse with fellow HRE practitioners.

🖇️ If you have time and interest, please consider joining one of  HRE USA’s Action Teams: HRE USA Action Teams and Working Group. We ask interested members to please complete the following HRE USA Leadership Survey 2025. Our Team Chairs will be in touch with you soon.

🛍️ Shop for UN declaration and convention booklets, posters, teaching materials, HRE USA publications, and the Human Rights Game at our shop.

Have HRE news, resources, or events to share?

For Blog posts, which feed the HRE USA Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, please email kristi@hreusa.org with “BLOG” in the subject line. **Please make sure that you include an image as well as the short writeup. If there is a link for further information, you can include this link. Blog examples: News and Updates (hreusa.org)

For Newsletter items, please send agenda items and story information to info@hreusa.org with “NEWSLETTER” in the subject line. **Please send an image and your story write-up with a link by the 15th of each month to be included in the next newsletter. Newsletter examples.

If you would like HRE USA to co-sponsor an upcoming human rights event by sharing with our network, please submit this form.