Abstract

Human Rights Education (HRE) often forms the cornerstone of addressing human rights issues at the local level where nongovernmental bodies in partnership with human rights agencies deliver various initiatives. Such agencies mostly operate from a neo-colonial framework as addressing structural and political power struggles limits addressing structural transformation for most vulnerable populations. There is a gap in the existing literature about the sense-making of such roles and responsibilities related to a local agency that speaks to active citizenship and youth as agents of change. This paper examines the effects of HRE associated with Freire’s emancipatory education on youth in the impoverished community of Trevo in Mozambique. Within this impoverished community, orphans and vulnerable youth makes up one of the lowest socio-economic strata that was targeted as the research population for this study. The research question addresses how such vulnerable youth make sense of HRE and how do they apply the learnings in an authentic and realistic way. A local nongovernment organisation (NGO) implemented the Bons Vizinhos (Good Neighbours) programme where children and youth received human rights’ training. Three executive members, two implementers and six youth took part in semi-structured interviews (primary data), whilst 21 posters from youth as part of a photo-voice activity were re-interpreted and thematically categorised (secondary data). Vulnerable populations socially construct their understandings of what they consider “safe” and “unsafe” spaces. HRE practitioners need to draw on these insights to make learning meaningful.

摘要

人权教育通常是在地方一级解决人权问题的基石，非政府机构与人权机构合作可开展各种举措。这些机构主要是在新殖民主义的框架下运作，因为解决结构和政治权力斗争限制了解决大多数弱势人群的结构转型。现有文献中关于与地方机构相关的这种角色和责任的理性认识存在空白，该机构将积极的公民身份和青年作为变革的推动者。本文研究了与弗莱雷的解放教育相关的HRE对莫桑比克Trevo贫困社区的青年的影响。在这个贫穷的社区里，孤儿和脆弱的年轻人构成了最低的社会经济阶层之一，该人群是本研究的研究对象。研究问题解决了这样的弱势青年如何理解HRE，以及他们如何以真实和现实的方式运用这些知识。地方非政府组织（NGO）实施了Bons Vizinhos（邻居）计划，儿童和青年在此接受了人权培训。三名执行成员，两名实施者和六名青年参加了半结构化访谈（主要数据），而作为照相语音活动一部分的21名来自青年的海报被重新解释并按主题进行了分类（次要数据）。弱势群体在社会上构建了对他们认为“安全”和“不安全”空间的理解。HRE从业人员需要利用这些见解使学习有意义。