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HRE USA

A network dedicated to building a culture of human rights

Category: News and Updates

30 Years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

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The Convention on the Rights of the Child is 30! Find ways to celebrate, advocate, teach, and more!

Thirty years ago, on November 20th, world  leaders adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) an international agreement on childhood. Now the most ratified of all international treaties, this historic commitment to the world’s children has radically transformed young lives across the globe. It sets out the rights that must be realized for children to develop to their full potential.

But still not every child gets to enjoy a full childhood. Still, too many childhoods are cut short. It is up to our generation to demand that leaders from government, business and communities fulfill their commitments and take action for child rights now, once and for all. 

Human Rights Here and Now – “For Every Child, Every Right.”

In honor of the 30th Anniversary, HRE USA has dedicated its latest edition of Human Rights Here and Now to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). We have also created an online toolkit of ready-to-use resources entitled, Every Child, Every Right! to help anyone learn and teach about the CRC!

To advocate for the rights of the child in the United States, HRE USA is also galvanizing support for U.S. ratification of the CRC through our CRC in the USA Campaign.

>> Every Child, Every Right Online Toolkit

Job Announcement: Reconstruction Campaign Organizer

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The Zinn Education Project (coordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change) seeks to recruit a part-time Campaign Organizer to design the next phase for the Teach Reconstruction Campaign. The length of the contract may be up to 12 months.

To date, the Teach Reconstruction Campaign has engaged thousands of classroom teachers across the U.S. in teaching about Reconstruction (the period between abolition and Jim Crow) with resources beyond the limited scope of textbooks and traditional curriculum. The next phase of the campaign is to extend these efforts to the policy level.

The campaign organizer will design and help implement the second phase of the Reconstruction Campaign in coordination with Zinn Education Project co-directors and staff.

>> Learn more and apply

FREE Webinar on Immigration with Journalist Sonia Nazario

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When: Thursday, October 17, 2019
Time:  7:00 pm EST
Where: Online Webinar
Cost: FREE

With more than 250 million migrants around the globe, including more than 65 million refugees, migration has sparked intense partisan debate, inspired advocacy, and changed the face of cities, neighborhoods, and schools.

Join Facing History and Ourselves, Write the World, and Share My Lesson for a FREE webinar that will explore powerful human stories behind this global trend in conversation with Sonia Nazario, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Enrique’s Journey: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother. Years after his mother left him behind in Honduras to seek work in the United States, Enrique embarked on a harrowing odyssey to find her. Join us to discuss the importance of stories in addressing today’s challenges of borders and belonging, and learn about Facing History and Ourselves’ extensive resources for teaching about immigration in social studies and literature classrooms. 

Participants will receive access to Facing History’s study guide for the YA version of Enrique’s Journey, along with current events lessons and other multimedia resources.

>> Learn more and register

Teach Central America Week

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Join educators across the country for #TeachCentralAmerica week from October 7 – 13, 2019. 

More than four million Central Americans reside in the United States and migration from the region is headline news. However, most schools teach very little about Central America, including the long history of U.S. involvement in the region. Central America is too-often portrayed as simply a strip of land on a map connecting North and South America. Students are left to imagine that their Central American heritage, or that of their peers, is insignificant. Teachers have learned little of the history themselves and there is a scarcity of literature in the school libraries. 

To help fill this gap, Teaching for Change has launched the #TeachCentralAmerica campaign. The goal of the campaign is to encourage and support teaching about Central America in K-12 schools so that students can learn about this region, which has many ties to the United States through foreign policy, immigration, commerce, and culture.

>> Learn more

HRE USA at Progressive Education Network Conference

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This Friday, October 4th, HRE USA will be at the National Progressive Education Network Conference in Minneapolis, MN.

Please stop by our booth, check out our free resources, see the winning art from our national UDHR poster contest, and learn more about how you can get involved in HRE USA.

This year’s conference theme is “Educating for Democracy: Navigating the Current and Channeling the Future of Progressive Education.” The conference will be jam-packed with energetic workshops led by passionate educators who are ready to engage with colleagues from all around the country to introduce, renew, affirm and create progressive practices – creating a mighty current that will transform education.

We hope to see you there!

>> Learn more and register for the PEN conference

Community Engagement for Human Rights and Social Justice Practitioners

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EVENT DETAILS: 

When: Friday, November 15
Time:  9:30 am – 4:30 pm
Where: Interchurch Center, 475 Riverside Dr., New York, NY 10027, Room 320C
Cost: $345 – Early Bird Rate (by October 18) $395 – regular rate.
 >> Register

Effective community engagement can be an essential aspect of human rights and social justice work, and yet remains a challenge for many practitioners. This workshop will examine questions such as: Where do you begin? How do you identify and build relationships with community members? How do you effectively engage and communicate with community members? How do you ensure that engagement is inclusive, equitable and reaches marginalized voices? What does meaningful participation look like? How do you ensure accountability? What are the relevant ethical considerations? 

By the end of this workshop, participants will be better able to:  critically examine how community engagement can be a valuable approach to human rights and social justice work; identify and analyze various elements of community engagement using a rights-based approach; identify community members, assess needs, identify opportunities for collaboration, effectively communicate with key stakeholders, address conflicts, and develop implementation strategies; identify and discuss challenges (including ethical, logistical, organizational) that may be encountered through this work, and how they might be addressed; and apply best/promising practices to their work.

Facilitator: Nahal Zamani is an Advocacy Program Manager at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she directs CCR’s advocacy and campaigns in the U.S. Nahal’s advocacy portfolio includes challenging the NYPD’s abusive stop and frisk practices and other discriminatory policing practices; economic and gender justice work; and the persecution and criminalization of LGBTQ communities. Nahal advocates regularly on a range of issues before elected officials, the UN and the public. On behalf of CCR, Nahal engages directly with impacted communities to identify collaborative campaign opportunities. She also serves on the Steering Committee of the Communities United for Police Reform (CPR) campaign in NYC. A frequent public speaker, Nahal’s work has been featured in BRIC TV, the NY Times, City and State NY and MSNBC.

For questions, email humanrightsed@columbia.edu

>> Register

Science and Human Rights Conference AAAS

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EVENT DETAILS: 
When: October 23-25, 2019
Where: AAAS Headquarters, 1200 New York Ave NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20005
Cost: $50-$200

At the AAAS Science and Human Rights Conference, participants will learn from successes and challenges of collaborations between scientists, engineers, health professionals, and human rights defenders; identify emerging needs and opportunities; and help set the agenda for future collaborative action and impact. The conference is hosted by the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition, a network of scientific and engineering membership organizations that recognize a role for science and scientists in human rights.

Marking the Coalition’s tenth anniversary and looking forward to the next ten years, sessions will share innovative developments and applications in science and technology that can support the efforts of human rights practitioners, as well as those that tackle human rights challenges associated with the conduct of science and application of technology.

>> Learn more and register

The 2019 Social Practice of Human Rights Conference Going against the grain

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EVENT DETAILS: 
When: October 1-4, 2019
Where: University of Dayton, Ohio
Cost: $70 per day or $250 for the full conference

FREE: Keynote and plenary sessions

OpenGlobalRights has teamed up with the University of Dayton Human Rights Center to feature its biennial conference, the Social Practice of Human Rights (SPHR), which serves as a platform to bridge the divide between scholars and practitioners and enable critical reflection on human rights research on and for advocacy.

In October 2019, SPHR will convene to address high-risk threats that present themselves with unprecedented urgency. It will be our task to reinvigorate collaborative efforts with hope and vigor, building sustainable movements and disruptive methods even when it means, to quote Pope Francis, “going against the grain.”

Featured speakers at the conference will include Opal Tometi, Anand Giridharadas, Zeynep Tufecki.

Each day includes a plenary, a keynote address, a mix of research sessions, and a forward-thinking workshop led by JustLabs and OpenGlobalRights.

>> Learn more and register

Webster University – Human Rights Conference on Global Migration

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EVENT DETAILS: 
When: October 9-10, 2019
Where: Browning Hall Auditorium (ISB Room 160, 8274 Big Bend Blvd.), Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri 
Cost: FREE and open to the public

Around the world, people are on the move – in search of safety, protection, family reunification, education, jobs, and more. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports that 68.5 million people were forcibly displaced last year due to persecution, conflict, and violence. Fifty million irregular migrants, 25.4 million registered refugees, and 25 million victims of forced labor also highlight the vast numbers of people living outside their home communities and facing severe rights challenges.

Webster University’s 2019 Annual Human Rights Conference focuses on the theme of “Global Migration” on October 9-10. This two-day event will explore topics such as displacement, restrictions on freedom of movement, borderland communities, statelessness, and the impacts of technology on migration. Sponsored by the Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies, this on-campus event is free and open to the public.

>> Learn more

We are grateful for the generous support of our members, individual donors, and The Puffin Foundation Ltd
The core values of HRE USA and its partner organizations include transparency and critical thinking skills. We believe that human rights--and human rights education--belong to everyone, and that the full realization of human rights means that access to human rights education materials must never be conditioned upon the subscription to any particular religious faith, ideology, political affiliation, or membership in any particular organization and that any organizational connections should be openly acknowledged.