HREA has been selected to conduct an impact assessment of Amnesty International’s human rights education programmes in ten countries. Amnesty International”s Rights-Education-Action-Programme (REAP) focuses on “multipliers”, people who through their work or position in society can teach or influence many others. Teachers, for example, are multipliers who work with school-children. In 2008 there are such REAP projects in Poland, Slovenia, Moldova, Russia, Turkey, Morocco, Israel, South Africa, India, Thailand and Malaysia. The REAP programme, which began in 2000 and concludes in 2009, is administered and funded by Amnesty International-Norway.
The impact assessment’s primary objectives include the improvement of human rights education by Amnesty International globally, as well as the improvement of project planning and management. Human rights education programming across Amnesty’s various REAP projects have involved a range of themes and target groups, mainly teachers and educators in formal educational systems, but also NGOs, community leaders, journalists, prison officials, judiciary officers, religious officers and others. In Poland, Amnesty International is working intensively with school groups, fostering the initiation of student groups that are engaged with raising awareness, letter-writing and carrying out other self-defined activities to promote human rights in their community. In South Africa by contrast, a strong emphasis has been placed on integrating human rights within community development, where there is a focus on women’s rights linked to HIV/AIDS.
HREA will develop a multi-level evaluation design involving analysis of impacts on a multitude of actors: beneficiaries of trainings, “multipliers”, key trainers, as well as on the organizational level. The data collection involves the administration of questionnaires as well as on-site visits to Poland, Malaysia, Morocco and South Africa. HREA’s Director Felisa Tibbitts is the Team Leader for the evaluation and she will be working with local co-evaluators during site visits. The evaluation is scheduled to conclude in the fall of 2008.