Human rights are legal rights that protect individuals from harm and inequality. They are based on universal principles of dignity, freedom, equality, and justice. Human rights education teaches these values and how to apply them in daily life to build a human rights culture. It also addresses misunderstandings around economic rights and the balance between individual and community rights. Education for sustainable development similarly aims to empower people through teaching life skills and values like environmental protection that can create a sustainable future.
Human rights are legal rights that protect individuals from harm and inequality. They are based on universal principles of dignity, freedom, equality, and justice. Human rights education teaches these values and how to apply them in daily life to build a human rights culture. It also addresses misunderstandings around economic rights and the balance between individual and community rights. Education for sustainable development similarly aims to empower people through teaching life skills and values like environmental protection that can create a sustainable future.
Human rights are legal rights that protect individuals from harm and inequality. They are based on universal principles of dignity, freedom, equality, and justice. Human rights education teaches these values and how to apply them in daily life to build a human rights culture. It also addresses misunderstandings around economic rights and the balance between individual and community rights. Education for sustainable development similarly aims to empower people through teaching life skills and values like environmental protection that can create a sustainable future.
enshrined in the Universal Declaration of human rights. Various human rights covenants, conventions, treaties, and declarations, regional charters, national constitutions, and laws. Human rights are much more than legal rights, they define our existence and work to protect it from inequality and harm.
Human rights provide the values,
principles, and standards that are essential to safeguard our most precious- the right to be human MYTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS Human rights are Western and alien to many cultures. Economic, social, and cultural rights are nor true rights. Human rights overemphasize the individual over the community. Human rights encourage adversarial and litigious approaches over one word and consensus. Human rights favor the status quo over social change. UNDERSTANDING HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION
Human rights education (HRE) is an
important field of education, both from the perspective set out above as well as from the objective of empowerment, But for HRE to be empowering, it is important that HRE start again with a blank slate. HRE, as practices in the developed world has focused too much on international right on law in books rather than on law in real-life, especially for the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized. HRE needs to focus much more on the responsibilities of the duty bearers and right-holders, including the nature of the rights they are claiming. HRE needs to focus on the values, principles, and standards of human rights and how they can be translated into day-to- day actions that become a way of life and ultimately, a human rights culture. HUMAN RIGHTS ARE UNIVERSAL AND INVISIBLE
Human rights are comprehensive. Human
rights apply everywhere and to everyone without distinction of color, sex, country, religion, wealth, or opinion they are based on universal values. Dignity
Freedom Which represent an ideal
for humanity as well as principles capable of Equality governing the lives of men, women, and children. Justice TYPOLOGY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
1. CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS
Right to life
Prohibition of torture
Prohibition of slavery and forced labor
2. SOCIO ECONOMIC Right to education
Right to housing
Right to adequate standard of living
Right to health
Right to science and culture
3. COLLECTIVE DEVELOPMENTAL Right to combine with other individual
Right to adopt and implement policies
Right to free and meaningful participation
WHAT DOES EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT MEAN? ESD is a dynamic and collective endeavor that envisions a world where everyone has the chance to benefit from educational opportunities and to learn the life styles, values and behaviors necessary to create a sustainable future. ESD means education that enables people to foresee, face up to and solve the problems that threaten life on the planet. It is education that understands the concepts and inculcates the values and principles that are the bases of sustainable development such as: Intergenerational equity
Tolerance of difference
Environmental protection and restoration
Natural resources conservation Just and peaceful societies
Gender parity
Poverty reduction
It is education that recognizes the
complexities and interdependence of the social, cultural, economic, and environmental dimensions of SD (UNESCO, 2004) AIMS AND STRATEGIES FOR EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
1. Promote and improve the quality of
education to focus lifelong education on the acquisition or knowledge skills and values needed by citizens to improve the quality of their lives. 2. Re-orient, re-think and reform the curriculum to be a vehicle of knowledge, through patterns and values needed to build a sustainable world.
3. Raise awareness, develop enlightened,
responsible and committed citizens. 4. Create synergies with initiatives of other sectors to adopt sustainable and responsible modes of production and consumption, to work together towards a common vision: a peaceful and sustainable future for generations to come (UNESCO, 2004) SEVEN INTERLINKED STRATEGIES ARE SUGGESTED: 1. Advocacy and vision building 2. Consultation and ownership 3. Partnership and network 4. Capacity-building and training 5. Research and innovation 6. Use of appropriate and expanded ICTs 7. Monitoring and evaluation (UNESCO 2004) WHAT IS SUSTANABLE DEVELOPMENT? Sustainable Development: An Evolving Concept Means having a different vision of the world. It is a constantly evolving concept, including the will to improve the quality of life at present and in the future. By reconciling economic growth, social and cultural development and environmental protection. Improving the quality of life involves a shift from our traditional ways of learning to more holistic and integrated approaches that recognize the interrelationships and interconnectedness of the various dimensions of development The key idea is that sustainable development is for all. It can be achieved only with the support and cooperation of all it is based on the interdependence of the economy. The social dimension implies an understanding of social institutions and their role in change and the cultural, an awareness and appreciation of a peoples history, tradition and total lifestyle. The economic dimension shows sensitivity to the limits and potentials of economic growth while the environmental deals with the protection and care of natural resources and the environment. Sustainable development was first defined in 1987 by the world Commission on environment and development in its report. Our common future (Bruntland, 1987), as that development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In 1992, at the Rio de Janerio earth summit, the main points of sustainable development are defined by Agenda 21, its action program for the 21st century adopted by governments, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. Education was regarded as critical form promoting sustainable development and improving the capacity of people to address environmental and development issues.
In 2002, Sustainable Development became
an integral part of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Goal 7 states: Ensure Environmental Sustainability. Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and reverse the present trend of loss of natural resources. Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking waters. Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: A HOLISTIC CONCEPT In 2002, the Johannesburg Summit its collective determination to promote the pillars of sustainable development- economic development, social development and safeguarding the environment as interdependent and mutually reinforcing. The recognition of the interdependence of society, the environment and the economy led to a more holistic concept of sustainable development as advocated by the Decade of Education for Sustainable development. Education for sustainable development addresses the pillars of society, economy and environment in their cultural context, advocating a harmonious and appropriate sustainable development. Thus, the holistic concept of sustainable development places people and the quality of life, present and future at the center of any development strategy in the context of their particular society, economy, environmental and culture, as interdependent and interrelated dimensions People are the heart of SD, SD is for people to improve the quality of their lives. FIGURE A: A holistic Concept of Sustainable Development An appropriate, balance and human- centered sustainable development may be likened to a house of happiness where people live and work together in peace and harmony. The house is supported by the four interrelated and interdependent pillars of society, culture, economy, and environment, in harmony with each other.