Human Rights

The technique and the philosophy of psychodrama in the fight for the defence of Human Rights across the world.

Experience to date has shown that human rights education is inconceivable without the experiential process, whether in the formal or non-formal and informal learning settings. Human rights training would end up being the worst form of manipulation, if addressed to passive learners, and would take the form of “ideology training”.

People, as rich reservoirs of experience, incorporate the bulk of Human Rights through their daily exchanges in the family, school, work and social settings they belong to and interact in.

Human balance, the balance of individual personalities, the balance of societies is defined by and depends on the recognition and enforcement of human rights.

The citizens of each state should be aware of the existence of Human Rights, be able to defend them when they are violated and respect them in their daily lives. Knowing how to defend and protect one’s own rights is important, but not enough. Human rights must be respected not only in some societies, but rather in all of them.

There is no a country in the world having a “clean record” when it comes to human rights violations.

The Centre for the Study and Application of Psychodrama, in cooperation with ARSIS (Association for the Social Support of Youth) set up a group of social scientists in view of training them in a set of methodologies, including psychodrama, so as for them to implement human rights interventions in the community, whenever human rights are attacked or trampled on, and raise the awareness of and empower mainly young people.

Implementation of Compass and Compasito

A. COMPASS-a manual on Human Rights Education with young people

This is a manual on human rights education which provides teachers, facilitators and youth educators with new concrete ideas and educational activities aimed at the commitment, involvement and mobilization of young people, in order for them and their community to develop a positive attitude to human rights.

The Compass training programmes and activities focus on promoting equality and respect for human dignity, they are based on an experiential and non-formal educational approach and cover a wide range of issues, including peace and violence, discrimination and xenophobia, democracy, education, gender equality, poverty, social rights, citizenship, globalization, human safety, health, sports, etc.

Compass was published by the Council of Europe Directorate of Youth and Sport, under the Human Rights Education Youth Programme, launched in 2000 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights.

ARSIS – Association for the Social Support of Youth is the official translator and publisher of the Greek version of the material of the Council of Europe for human rights education for youth and an accredited human rights training provider.

B. COMPASITO-a manual on Human Rights Education with young people

COMPASITO, a publication of the Council of Europe covering a very broad range of issues, is a complete manual on human rights education for children aged up to thirteen years.

Based on the philosophy and the educational approaches of COMPASS, COMPASITO provides children, teachers, and parents with activities and methods of introducing children to human rights in creative and interesting ways. Just like COMPASS, it uses a non-formal educational methodology and has a structure that provides theoretical and practical support to the users, encouraging them to adapt the material to the needs and realities of themselves and the children.

C. HUMAN RIGHTS TRAINERS’ TRAINING

Sofia Symeonidou has implemented COMPASS and COMPASITO in a large number of social interventions for children and youth in formal and informal education and has trained a large number of teachers and social scientists in the use of the two manuals as tools for Human Rights education, from 2006 to date, as the main trainer of Human Rights trainers, in collaboration with ARSIS, in view of disseminating them to the community.

Experience so far has shown that COMPASS and COMPASITO are valuable tools in regard to human rights education and therefore in addressing social issues that arise in the everyday life of the school community or any structure open to the community.

ARSIS – Association for the Social Support of Youth is a social non-governmental organization working since 1992 to support children and young people and defend their rights. It has branches in Athens, Thessaloniki, Volos, Kozani and Alexandroupolis, and has been active in many other cities, as well. The mission of ARSIS is to take action to prevent the social exclusion of young people. In this context, it has developed methodologies and tools to support young people, organized and participated in networks, collaborated with public agencies and non-governmental organizations and formulated proposals in the field of social policy for children and young people.