News and Updates – Page 26

2025 Summer Activist Training Camp (SATC)

by hreusaMay 16, 2025Leave a comment

Are you (or do you know) a high school student passionate about social justice, democracy, and creating positive social change? Girls Learn International is hosting a virtual Summer Activist Training Camp (SATC) designed to empower the next generation of activists. This free online program is open to high school and first-year college students of any gender who are eager to sharpen their advocacy skills. SATC runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays from July 8 to July 31, 2025. Applications are due June 25, 2024!

The 2024-2025 Training As Action Series – Recordings

by hreusaMay 15, 2025Leave a comment

Thank you to everyone who joined us in celebrating the 35th anniversary of the CRC through our Training As Action Series!

The theme of the 2024-2025 virtual training series was: “Youth Power, Defending Human Rights: Learnings and Actions for the 35th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).”

If you were unable to attend sessions, recordings are available at our YouTube channel and on our website!

Introduction to Human Rights Educators USA   >> Session recording
Module 1: Youth Power, Defending Human Rights   >> Session recording
Module 2: Know Your (Human) Rights: Education for Youth Empowerment   >> Session recording
Module 3: Trust Kids! Dismantling Hierarchy in Human Rights Advocacy >> Session recording
Module 4: A Children’s Rights-Lens to Youth Human Rights Advocacy >> Session recording
Module 5: Digital Citizenship & Human Rights in the Age of Disinformation>> Session recording
Module 6: Challenging U.S.-Centric Models, Building International Youth Solidarity >> Session recording
Module 7: Big Actions, Big Feelings: Practical Empathy in Human Rights >> Session recording
Module 8: Theory of Change: Designing Youth Spaces/Places in Human Rights >> Session recording

Slides, resources, and notes from TAAS sessions are available on our website at
https://hreusa.org/projects/training-as-action-series/

Thank you to our TAAS 2024-25 Co-sponsors!

Zinn Education Project: New Lesson: Legalize Black Education

by hreusaMay 15, 2025Leave a comment

Black education was a fugitive project from its inception — outlawed and defined as a criminal act regarding the slave population in the southern states and, at times, too, an object of suspicion and violent resistance in the North. — Jarvis Givens, Fugitive Pedagogy

We just posted Legalize Black Education: The Long Fight for the Right to Learn by Jesse Hagopian. This lesson reveals a pattern: When Black people make significant educational gains — or score victories in their broader struggles for freedom — there is a corresponding white supremacist backlash that often includes legal restrictions and violence.

Students explore laws passed to curb Black education in the wake of major victories for the Black Freedom Struggle, highlighting the historical context and motivations behind these legislative efforts. They also discuss quotes about Black education.

Check out the lesson and let us know if you use it in your classroom. We’ll send you books in appreciation for your teaching story.

Handouts from the lesson are also available to use as mini-lessons for the Teach Truth Day of Action.

PBS Learning Media: Civics Collection

by hreusaMay 14, 2025Leave a comment

Democracy depends on informed citizens who have the knowledge and skills to engage in their government. Empower your student citizens with this collection that teaches civic knowledge and understanding through applied examples from U.S. history and skills such as analyzing civic engagement and engaging in civil discourse. Focusing on multiple perspectives and diverse stories, these resources enable all students to see themselves as civic actors and prepare them to engage in civic political life.

Interactive Lesson (20), Video (154), Media Gallery (29), Interactive (14) for Grades 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

>> Access resource

Human Rights Education Review, Volume 8, Issue 1 (2025)

by hreusaMay 14, 2025Leave a comment

The latest issue of Human Rights Education Review, the official journal of the International Association for Human Rights Education is now published. I invite you to browse Volume 8 (1) in which you will find an editorial addressing ‘Education for human rights and hope in a turbulent world’, 14 articles and many book reviews.

Articles address human rights learning in Canada, Finland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Rwanda, South Africa, Sweden, UK, USA and more and span early years to higher education. All the current content is either Open Access or free access for a limited period.

HRER is now published by Taylor and Francis.

>> Read now

Oral History in Practice: Documenting Refugee Stories

by hreusaMay 13, 2025Leave a comment

Join us for a conversation with Diya Abdo about oral history as a tool for documenting refugee experiences and advocating for immigrant justice. Diya founded Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR), which advocates for housing refugee families on college and university campuses and supporting them in their resettlement, and led an oral history project recording newcomer experiences.

In this conversation, we’ll explore topics including:

Practices around relationship-building, privacy, and ethics for storytelling projects with immigrants and refugees
Ṣawt (“voice” in Arabic), a new oral history project that records and amplifies the voices and experiences of refugees hosted by colleges and universities
Creatively adapting oral histories into a variety of formats, including comics, literary narratives, videos, and powerful visuals

May 21, 2025, 2pm–3pm (PDT), virtual

HRE USA Submissions to United Nations Universal Periodic Review of the United States of America

by hreusaMay 13, 2025Leave a comment

HRE USA has submitted two reports for the Fourth Cycle of the 50th Session of the UPR to the Human Rights Council with Amnesty International, Educators’ Institute for Human Rights, Right to Learn (R2L) Coalition, and Students of Human Rights and Education, Columbia University (SHRECU).

Special thanks to our co-authors and organizational partners for their work in producing these reports on protecting the right to education, academic freedom, and human rights in the United States!

>> Read the report: Protecting The Right to Education, Academic Freedom, And Human Rights Education in the United States
>>Read the report: Attacks on Academic Freedom: Columbia University and Beyond

>> See all International Advocacy reports

HRE Resources for Living Together in Peace

by hreusaMay 12, 2025Leave a comment

The UN recognizes May 16 as the International Day of Living Together in Peace to promote peace, tolerance, inclusion, understanding and solidarity – both inside and across borders. Sustainable peace is possible only when human rights are respected.

The Day promotes reconciliation to help ensure peace and sustainable development, including through education, by working with communities, faith leaders and other relevant actors, through reconciliatory measures and acts of service, and be encouraging forgiveness and compassion among individuals.

HREA has over 20 resources addressing peace education, including lesson plans, toolkits, teacher training manuals and multimedia materials.

In preparation for educational activities for peace and throughout the year, you are welcome to explore HREA’s Online Resource Center for HRE resources on topics at the intersection human and children’s rights.

Zinn Education Project: Free Speech Movement Teacher Workshop

by hreusaMay 9, 2025Leave a comment

Join us for an interview by Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian with activist scholars Bettina Aptheker, author of Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Feminist Rebel and Robert Cohen, author of The Essential Mario Savio: Speeches and Writings that Changed America. The workshop is co-sponsored by the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.

Aptheker will describe her own involvement with the Free Speech Movement (FSM) and Cohen will trace the roots of the FSM back to the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi. Both will address the legacy of the Free Speech Movement and the current free speech crisis on campuses and other public institutions. We will share teaching ideas and there will be breakout group discussions about addressing the FSM in the classroom.

The first 100 teacher attendees to register and attend will receive a free copy of one of the books listed above. Professional development credit certificate provided.

May 21, 2025, 4pm (PT)/7pm (ET), virtual

>> Register

Eleanor Roosevelt: Censorship, Past & Present Panel Discussion

by hreusaMay 8, 2025Leave a comment

When: June 12, 6 – 7 pm

Location: Rockefeller Hall at Vassar College, 124 Raymond Ave, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604

Tickets: $35 General Admission

Register

Join us for a dynamic panel discussion on the legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt’s fight for free expression and how censorship continues to shape our world today. Featuring Blanche Wiesen Cook (Roosevelt biographer), Yana Gorokhovskaia (Freedom House), Lee Rowland (NCAC), Daniel Shank Cruz (PEN America), and Miriam Cohen (Evalyn Clark Professor Emerita of History), this conversation will explore the past and present of intellectual freedom, global censorship trends, and what Roosevelt’s legacy can teach us in this moment.

This panel supports our 2nd Annual Bravery in Literature “Banned Book Awards” Ceremony on October 11th. All ticket proceeds benefit our October event which honors authors whose books are challenged or banned. Find out more at ervk.org/banned-books.