One-year anniversary of HRE 2020

28 April 2015

HRE 2020 marked it's one-year anniversary on 19 December 2014. During this first year, the coalition built vital foundations to engage effectively with policymakers in order to achieve our goal of strengthening accountability for the implementation of human rights education programmes.

“One of the most exciting aspects of our advocacy activities at the UN level has been the tremendous value added of the work in coalition with other civil society organisations to increase international visibility and achieve greater impact. The work we have done this year with HRE 2020 shows the power of a global coalition speaking with a unified voice for human rights education” said Sneh Aurora, International Human Rights Education Manager, Amnesty International.

HRE 2020 has engaged with Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures, worked within the UPR process and actively contributed to international human rights education meetings and debates. “HRE 2020 remains strongly committed to these efforts as we aim to bring greater awareness of human rights education commitments within civil society, governments, treaty bodies and other stakeholders” said Kazunari Fujii, Director, Soka Gakkai International UN Liaison Office in Geneva.

In September 2014, HRE 2020 member HRE USA submitted the first Universal Period Review (UPR) stakeholder report on human rights education in the United States. HRE USA coordinated several civil society consultations to assess the government’s implementation of recommendations from the first cycle and identify policy recommendations to improve HRE within the school curriculum, teacher training and the school environment.

“The opportunity to be involved in an HRE stakeholder review as part of a UPR was an extraordinary learning experience for me and other members of the Human Rights USA network. The HRE 2020 Indicator Framework was a valuable tool for our organizing our thinking around data collection. This, combined with Adele Poskitt’s (HREA member of HRE 2020) experience in preparing these reports, was an essential contribution to our successfully completing the submission to the OHCHR in September 2014” said Felisa Tibbitts, Founder and Senior Advisor of HREA and Steering Committee member of HRE USA.

HRE 2020 aims to make sure human rights education goes beyond empty promises to developing the skills and attitudes to promote equality, dignity and people’s participation in decision-making processes. "We still have a long road ahead of us for making the human right to human rights education a reality for everyone. Progress has been made, but a lot remains to be done" said Adele Poskitt, HREA. “It has been incredibly encouraging to see the amount of interest from civil society organisations all over the world wanting to incorporating HRE within their national UPR submissions. By the year 2020 we want international human rights mechanisms, instruments and policies to be systematically holding all national governments to account for their human rights education commitments."

Read about some of HRE 2020's major activities and achievements during 2014.