Youth for Youth Project

Youth to Youth: Educating on Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals

Youth for Youth is a human rights and values education and awareness-raising project aimed at children and young university students. This project contributes to the development of a human rights culture in which children and young people are aware of their own rights and their obligations towards others, promoting their development as responsible members of a interdependent, free, peaceful, pluralistic and inclusive society.

The project involves university students and children between 5 and 18 years of age, from schools in different regions of Spain.

If you want to be part of our team of young people willing to train and raise awareness of human rights, this is your chance!

Since I was a child, I was well aware that the Earth was everyone's heritage. I was also sure that no one should ever be discriminated because of its race, country of origin or sexual orientation. However, I thought that everyone held the same beliefs...

Thus, I grew up believing that the world was moving towards a kind of egalitarian world in which war and discrimination would be a thing of the past. However, over time I discovered that this was not true and that the defense of Human Rights was a front line in which people, sometimes anonymous, sometimes public, had never stopped defending with sweat and blood.

Thanks to the Youth for Youth program, I have been able to learn, first-hand, the testimony of these agents of change, who have presented us with different ways of acting in defense of people whose rights are systematically violated by the non-application of such basic principles as the right not to be tortured or harassed or even to live in peace.

The active facet of the program, the one for which we were required to transmit the content of the courses, was motivating and stimulating. Despite having participated in school training programs (through the Erasmus in Schools program in Lodz, Poland), I did not expect that the students would react with such energy and precision in the discussion of the contents that we offered them. It seems that, although today it seems otherwise, Humanity is making its way.

Carlos Barja Márquez

Objectives

This project seeks to promote the fulfillment of Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), contribute to effective gender equality, encourage environmental sustainability and responsible consumption, foster coexistence and education free of violence, support the protection of groups at risk of vulnerability through awareness-raising, and facilitate volunteering as a mechanism for youth participation.

Phases

  • Training for young university students in Human Rights and SDGs

  • Training in emotional management for parents and gender equality training for teachers in schools

  • Awareness-raising in schools through workshops given by university students on human rights and values for boys and girls

  • Developing pedagogical material on human rights educatio

Contents

The content of the human rights training course at the university level is as follows:

Once the training program has been completed, the young university students put their knowledge into practice in schools that have previously agreed upon Helsinki España to take part in the project. Through a participatory methodology using pedagogical dynamics and games, they give awareness-raising workshops to school-age children.

The young university students, far from being just listeners, instead become the real actors of the project and those responsible for the transformation of their communities. The combination of training and volunteering is the most effective formula for the assimilation of concepts and the acquisition of values. The schoolchildren interact very positively with the young university students.

To date, we have managed to train 5,150 volunteers from 75 different universities on Human Rights and SDG. Through them, we have raised awareness among more than 40,084 children in more than 100 schools located in different regions of Spain, namely Andalusia, Castilla y León, Castilla la Mancha, Valencian Community, Galicia, Canary Islands, Madrid, the Basque Country, the Principality of Asturias, etc. The project has been implemented internationally in countries like the United States, Italy, Mexico, or Portugal.

Internationally, the project has been developed in the United States, Italy, Mexico and Portugal. On the other hand, we have trained 200 mothers and fathers in “emotional intelligence and conflict resolution”, as well as 100 teachers in “gender equality and human rights”.

Youth for Youth Alumni Testimonials

Mariano

I don`t know who has discovered more, if them by listening to us or us by reflecting with them… The best way to change the world is to plant in them the seed that made me want to change it.

Ana

My experience in the project “Jóvenes para Jóvenes” was excellent. I loved the course because it has complemented my formation, but at the same time it has brought new ideas and perspectives on transcendental topics to achieve a more just and better world. The opportunity to attend schools is a great way to raise awareness among the youth, they are the carriers of the change needed. The workshops make it possible for the students to participate in the real world, but most importantly it incentivizes them to think critically. Knowing that through hands-on sessions it is possible to raise awareness and sensitize is satisfactory, it allows young people to reflect on problems they might not have heard of before, it is also important that they feel like they are a part of the change being made. As a volunteer of this project, I strongly advice other people to participate in it, in my case it made me want to keep fighting through education.

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