“Vision Human Rights Culture – Human Rights into Technical Curricula of Vocational Schools and Further Teacher Training of ”Human Rights Ambassadors”

More than 50 years after the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948 by the United Nations the idea and the significance of the Human Rights catalogue has still not been planted into the minds of mankind in order to promote a sustainable and preventive “Human Rights Culture”. Human Rights violations are thus still a sad reality in most countries in the world. The Annual Report 2003 of one of our project partners, the human rights organization amnesty international, deplores human rights violations in 151 countries of the world. In 106 states torture and mistreatment of dissidents are a daily practice, in 31 countries the death penalty is still imposed and executed. The latest developments in the Middle East and the socalled “War on Terrorism” in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 also contribute to a growing disregard of human rights. Human rights education is thus more relevant and more important than ever before and has to be implemented in all forms of schools. The SOKRATESCOMENIUS 2.1 Project “Vision Human Rights Culture” – Human rights into the technical curricula of vocational schools and further training of “Human Rights Ambassadors” aims at a so far quite neglected area – at the technical curricula in vocational schools (Spöttl 2003a).

The “Human Rights Project”– funded by the European Commission and own resources of the participating partner organizations – has two main objectives:

1. Human Rights should become a “new routine” in all kinds of education. They should not be confined to subjects such as history, social sciences or religious education but should form an omnipresent issue for technical instruction.
2. A further training course for technical teachers to become “Human Rights Ambassadors” should help them to cope with this new and important task and will enable them to act as multipliers for their colleagues and as promoters of human rights at their schools.

The partnership of the “Human Rights Project” is organized in the beneficiary of the project, scientific guidance and coordination as well as in four National Teams. Each National Team encompasses (Socrates Application 2001):

• A teacher training institution of a university
• The local/regional government
• Vocational schools and their technical teachers
• Non-governmental organizations working on human rights