Human Rights Educators USA suggests that artists and teachers first get familiar with the contents, history, and significance of this founding document of human rights. Read UDHR and background information about it provided in this Resource Kit and do some of the suggested activities.
IDEAS TO STIMULATE LEARNING AND CREATIVITY:
- Get familiar with the UDHR. Read the background information about the UDHR and brush up on some of the basic facts and figures.
- Read the complete and simplified versions of the UDHR aloud as a group (see list below). You can also find the UDHR online in hundreds of different languages.
- Reflect on what the UDHR means to you personally and/or as a group.
- Why should we celebrate the UDHR?
- What does the UDHR mean to you? To your school, neighborhood, or community? To the world?
- How do you experience the human rights in your life?
- What does it mean to stand up for human rights?
- In addition to submitting to the Art for Human Rights project, get permission to display works in a public place in your community (e.g., schools, library, city hall, museum, shopping mall, farmers market, local fair or celebration). Take photographs of your display.
- Get your city to declare Human Rights Day on December 10,, 2018, and every year thereafter.
- Check out the UN’s official 70th Anniversary website for more ideas
POSTER IDEAS:
- Posters might illustrate a specific article of the UDHR, a human rights principle enshrined in the UDHR, or the document itself.
- Have each member of the group illustrate a different article of the UDHR.
- Display many smaller items together like a mosaic on a prominent wall.
- Suspend small items on a string from a ceiling, stairwell, etc.
- Mount them around an entrance, up a stairway, down a corridor
- Show multiple cards or posters as an installation with sound of the UDHR being read in the background
- Package artworks as a “traveling exhibit” and share in different sites in your community.
- Make notecards, calendars, or tee shirts of your work.
RESOURCES:
UDHR:
- UDHR full-text version
- UDHR graphic 2-page version
- UDHR graphic 4-page version
- UDHR illustrated version
- UDHR simplified version
- UDHR simplified version by Amnesty
- UDHR interactive graphic version
- UDHR video in multiple languages
- UDHR sign language version
- UDHR passport-sized booklet
UDHR posters:
UDHR Videos
- UDHR @ 70: Perspective
Source: United Nations, 2017
Content: Animated review of the kinds of rights included in the 30 Articles of the UDHR, how they are protected, and how they have involved.
Time: 4 minutes
Audience: middle school – adults - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Video
Source: United Nations, 2017
Content: Reviews the history and main principles of the UDHR.
Time: 6:10 minutes
Audience: middle school – adults
Lesson Suggestions: What are Universal Human Rights - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Source: Human Rights Action Center, 2008
Content: Animated video about the UDHR.
Time: 4:30 minutes
Audience: middle school – adults - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Video
Source: Amnesty International
Content: Brings to life each of the 30 articles of the UDHR with a lively animated cartoon.
Time: 22 minutes
Audience: middle school – adults - Human Rights
Source: E-politik.de.
Content: Animated video that explains human rights concepts. Reviews types of rights included the UDHR, and the challenge of enforcing them.
Time: 8:39 minutes
Audience: middle school – adults - Human Rights In Two Minutes
Source: Amnesty Switzerland
Content: Animated video aimed at young teens.
Time: 2:30 minutes
Audience: middle school
LEARNING ACTIVITIES ON THE UDHR
- Stand up for Human Rights – Add Your Voice
Source: United Nations
Contents: #Stand up for Human Rights, a project of the UN, invites people from around the world to record an article of the UDHR in their own language.
Age Level: Children – Adults
Resource: Promotional video encouraging participation - The World as It Could Be
Publisher: The World as It Could Be
Content: Full curriculum that uses the arts to deepen students knowledge and understanding of the UDHR and be engaged members of their local and global communities to manifest the document’s words. - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Source: Generation Human Rights, 2018
Content: A lesson in which students identify human rights unsupported in their community or the world and create their own Rights of the Teenager.
Age Level: middle – high school - Human Rights Toolkit
Source: The Advocates for Human Rights
Content: Excellent introductory lessons to human rights and their US and personal impact.
Age Level: middle – high school - Fundamental Freedoms: Eleanor Roosevelt and the UDHR
Source: Facing History and Ourselves
Contents: Full curriculum including primary documents, questions to stimulate discussion, photographs, maps, political cartoons.
Age Level: high school - Human Rights Here and Now: Celebrating the UDHR
Source: Amnesty International, University of Minnesota Human Rights Center, The Stanley Foundation, 1998
Contents: Full curriculum that introduces the UDHR and provides activities for taking action.
Age Level: middle – high school - Universal Declaration of Human Rights Poster Set and Educator’s Guide
Source: Amnesty International USA
Contents: T welve lessons that introduce the UDHR and explore key human rights issues.
Grade Level: middle – high school
hreusa.org 