Human rights and youth development

By Kathryn Sharpe

Photo: Steve Parkinson, flickr (cc)

I recently had conversations with young people about:

• Should rural access to broadband be considered an educational necessity given how much of school learning requires online research?
• Why do we allow people to be homeless even during the bitter cold?
• Is access to healthy food a right or a privilege?

I realized that to fully address these seemingly unrelated topics, I needed a larger framework than just our society’s norms or laws, so I drew upon human rights. Seventy years ago, in the long shadow cast by World War II and the Holocaust, nations from all over the world signed the International Declaration of Human Rights (IDHR). This agreement asserts that the “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” 

But why are human rights relevant for young people today? In a world that is increasingly interconnected through media, communications, travel and migration, many youth are aware that their lives are connected with people and places all over the world. Human rights can serve as a kind of toolbox for ways to understand the human dilemmas that face them: war, poverty, environmental crises, injustice. The Council of Europe developed Compass: Manual for Human Rights Education with Young People as a resource with experiential activities to help youth develop their awareness of human rights and their civic engagement in a democratic society.  

The universal rights that are boldly declared in the IDHR go beyond most nations’ laws, upholding a  higher ethical standard for all people to strive toward. Yet because they are big and universal, human rights can also be controversial, which provides an opportunity for meaningful debate about rights, values and responsibilities. For example, the IDHR asserts access to adequate food, housing, and health care as human rights. In the U.S., this is not always the way that these things are understood. The debate about this provides a rich opportunity for learning.

In Minnesota 4-H, we strive to help youth develop global citizenship skills and become social change agents. Exploring human rights provides them a context for exploring the concept of global citizenship. To promote this, we have developed a pilot project called the Central Region 4-H Human Rights Project. This is an opportunity, in partnership with the Advocates for Human Rights, for youth in grades 6 - 12 to learn about human rights. They will participate in webinars, develop a project on an issue that matters to them, and work with a coach who is a human rights expert. The project will culminate with a visit to Advocates for Human Rights where they will present their projects, and then a visit to the University of Minnesota’s Human Rights Program to explore college and career opportunities related to human rights.

How might you engage the concept of human rights in your work with youth?

-- Kathryn Sharpe, Extension educator

You are welcome to comment on this blog post. We encourage civil discourse, including spirited disagreement. We will delete comments that contain profanity, pornography or hate speech--any remarks that attack or demean people because of their sex, race, ethnic group, etc.--as well as spam.