INTRODUCTION & PROGRAMME - APCEIU

284th Asia-Pacific Teachers Training Workshop1. Human Rights Are Central to Human WellbeingEnjoyment of human rights makes the difference between being and just merely existing. Theysafeguard both human dignity and human identity (individual and collective) and thus bring purposeand worth to existence. They safeguard physical integrity of the person and human security of allpeoples. Freedom from fear and freedom from want constitute the minimal essential conditions ofbeing, for individuals, communities and peoples. Human rights are holistic and interdependent, asindeed they must be since they inhere in the human person. Human rights are both individual andcollective, as indeed they must be since no man is an island. Indeed our individual, solitary existencedraws meaning from our social interactions: with family, friends and community. Hence, human rightsdefine and defend our futures as human beings.2. Key Human Rights Concepts• Human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated.• Human rights are universal and inalienable.- Across centuries, across civilization, across religions, human rights have existed forall human beings and for all peoples.• Human rights are indivisible.- It is a false dichotomy that certain Asian governments propound between bread andfreedom. They argue bread now, freedom later. But over time, stripped of rhetoric, suchgovernments guarantee neither bread nor freedom. The real question in our societies is notbread versus freedom. Rather, it is who in our societies has how much of each, and why?Without bread, it is difficult to exercise one's freedom. Without freedom, the bread has lost itsflavor.• Human rights are interdependent and interrelated.: Thus, the right to food is related to the right to work, the right to health, the right tosocial services and, most importantly to the rights of women. The right to adequate housing isa good example of the interdependence and interrelatedness of human rights. What constitutes"adequate" housing is determined by interdependent factors and rights such as availability ofjobs, access to basic services, proximity to work and health care, affordability, habitability,accessibility and cultural adequacy. Certain rights such as freedom from discrimination arecrosscutting and intimately related to the enjoyment of several other human rights. However,the indivisibility, interdependence and inter-relatedness of human rights does not preclude thesetting of priorities in human rights actions. Clearly priority must be given to the rights mostneglected and least realized and to the rights of peoples most neglected, excluded ordiscriminated against.