From the Consortium President
Message Posted September 7, 2006
Since the last message we have had two new members join the Consortium. Our newest members are: Shawo Mwakilama, Lilongwe, Malawi, a human rights activist and educator whose interest is prison education and Steve Lockwood, Esq., Utica New York a prominent civil rights attorney and adjunct professor at Hamilton and Utica College. We welcome these human rights educators. You are encouraged to review their membership information form found on our web page. Steve will attend the Board meeting this October at Utica College as a observer and informal legal adviser. Shawo, who at the moment is in Vermont for training, intends to visit the Secretariat in the near future.
This is the last call for participants to join us for the Roundtable to be held at Utica College. You received a e-mail message from Mark Ensalaco outlining the agenda for the roundtable:
A Roundtable
Interdisciplinary human rights programs have proliferated at colleges and universities throughout the world over the past decade.
The International Human Rights Education – IHREC -- was formed in 2000 to promote this trend and to educate the human rights professionals of the future.
Existing human rights programs are appropriately diverse. They differ significantly with respect to curricula, pedagogy, the administrative units that house them, the balance between Humanities and the Social and Behavior Sciences, and other variables. But there are significant commonalities beneath this diversity.
After a decade of evolution, it is possible to identify best practices in human rights education.
The IHREC plans to convene a series of roundtables on best practices with a view to promoting the institutionalization of human rights programming.
The Human Rights Advocacy Program at Utica College will host the first roundtable on Saturday October 7.
The Utica roundtable will focus on outcomes, curriculum and competencies.
- What are the desirable outcomes of human rights education? Should HRE be modeled on liberal education or pre-professional education, or seek to combine elements of both?
- Is there a core HRE curriculum? Strict standardization is neither feasible nor desirable, but is there is a minimal set of “requisites” that define HRE?
- What skills or competencies should be taught? How can human rights education best prepare graduates for careers in human rights advocacy?
The roundtable is open to educators and program directors and other interested individuals. Individual or institutional membership in the IHREC is not required.
A number of Consortium members have agreed to participate and we anticipate a lively and productive discussion. The proceedings will be recorded. We have planned a number of roundtables in North America, including the Midwest, California, etc.. At our Sofia, Bulgarian meeting to be held in March 2007 we are considering to repeat the exercise for Balkan members. We will be discussing other possibilities roundtable venues at our Board meeting on October 6th.
If you are interested in participating at the Utica event please contact the Secretariat and Mark Ensalaco mark.Ensalaco@notes.udayton.edu
On October 5th Claudia Mahler and Reetta Toivanen (IHREC VP) will present a lecture at Utica College "Teaching Human Rights in Europe" -It will be open to the public. As you are aware Dr. Anja Mihr, Claudia and Reetta are organizing the Berlin Conference and IHREC meeting Oct. 26-28. I have heard from many of our members who will be attending the conference including Board members Liam Gearon (Roehampton, UK) , Rita Maran (Berkeley,USA), Ted Orlin (Utica,USA). Tania Reytan -Marincheska (Bulgaria) and Martin Scheinin (Abo, Finland), Audrey Osler (Leeds, UK ).
Allwyn D'Silva (Mumbai, India) is continuing to organize two Consortium human rights education workshops in Mumbai and in the South of India (February 2007). Details of the workshops are forthcoming and you will be informed of the specifics.
Our Albanian members are planning the Second Human Rights Film Festival in Tirana, Albania in March 2007.
Progress is being made for Consortium activities for Japan in May 2007. Our members there are arranging my visit to a number of human rights educational institutions. In addition several of the Philippines participants at our Taiwan Meeting (May 2006) have invited me to meet and discuss with prospective human rights educators the planning of a Asian consortium conference for 2007-2008. There will be a Consortium organization meeting in June in the Philippines.
As we approach the annual meeting (Oct. 6th) we are coming to the end of our fiscal year. As per the voluntary dues policy we established at Roehampton in 2005 I will be sending you a direct message seeking your financial support for 2007-2008 Consortium activities.
In the interim if you would like to add a agenda item for Board discussion please forward it to the Secretariat prior to my formalizing the agenda.
Sincerely,
Theodore S. Orlin, (IHREC Pres.)
Clark Professor of Human Rights Scholarship and Advocacy,
Utica College, Utica, New York, USA