The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) recently launched a new Teacher Toolkit on human rights, conflict resolution and tolerance in schools for Palestine refugee children. “The Toolkit builds on a fifteen-year history of teaching human rights in UNRWA schools. The goal of the Toolkit is to provide all teachers with an engaging and participatory approach to teaching human rights”, says Paul McAdams, Senior Programme Associate at HREA, who worked extensively to develop the Toolkit.
The Toolkit is a component of UNRWA’s Human Rights, Conflict Resolution and Tolerance Programme, and is the result of a policy developed in collaboration by HREA and UNRWA to provide more coherence to the teaching of human rights in UNRWA’s five fields of work (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza). The Programme provides human rights education to nearly 500,000 Palestine refugees.
The Toolkit was developed after a lengthy consultation process involving a variety of stakeholders, including discussions with UNRWA staff, teachers, students, members of civil society and governments. “The sustainability of the Toolkit relies on a number of key factors”, adds McAdams. “Namely that it builds on an existing appreciation of human rights principles and values in schools; it is accepted as a set of tools to help teachers, not to burden them with additional responsibilities; and that students believe they can positively contribute to a culture of human rights in their schools, communities, and on a global scale.”
The full Toolkit will soon be available in Arabic and English.