Intercultural Understanding and Human Rights Education ... - APCEIU

▶ Ms. Kristi Rudelius-Palmer
| Summary of Presentation |
- Ms. Kristi Rudelius-Palmer
HRE can be a barrier for diverse races
and ethnicities. HRE can potentially serve
to reinforce power dynamics that
maintain a privileged status quo. Hence,
HRE and its facilitators need to
consistently challenge institutionalized
forms of oppression both in terms of its
design, delivery, and dissemination.
Some of the barriers that the human rights
educator and HRE process need to
recognize are: dominant racial/ethnic
group holding the economic, social,
cultural, political, and civil power and
marginalized individuals or marginalized
collective groups of peoples.
HRE moves beyond passive learning
about human rights and embraces
learning that is actively for human rights.
One clear example of this is in the design
and delivery of human rights workshops,
led by facilitators who are committed to
the goals and objectives of HRE. Four
essential components of facilitating
workshops involving diverse races and
ethnicities are: (1) to provide guidelines
for an open, respectful learning
experience; (2) to acknowledge
assumptions of societal human rights
myths, discrimination, and power and
privilege differentials; (3) to link diverse
peoplesmovements with a human rights
movement in the U.S.; (4) to foster an
environment of trust and transparency;
and (5) to examine different conflict
resolution approaches and styles,
including individual and collective
responses.
We need to maintain the integrity of
HRE and subvert systems of oppression.
This inherent tension between human
rights reinforcing a status quo or
transforming the dynamics of oppression
is the essence of the power of HRE.
Hence, HRE can provide the tools,
vehicles, and accountability processes to
build our individual and collective crosschecking
system. (please refer to page
131 for full text)
International Symposium on a Culture of Peace 33