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!
Check the next calls
- Call for applications open in Galicia (A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela), from October 17 to 21.
- Call for applications open in Madrid, from October 24 to 28.
- Call for applications open in Islas Canarias, from November 7 to 11.
- Call for applications open in Andalucía (Málaga), from November 21 to 25.
- Call for applications open in Madrid, from February 13 to 17.
- Call for applications open in Castilla La Mancha (Toledo), from February 20 to 24
- Call for applications open in Valencia, from March 6 to 10.
- Call for applications in Castilla y León (Valladolid), from March 20 to 24.
- Call for applications open, from April 18 to 21.
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.
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
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Training for young university students in Human Rights and SDGs
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Training in emotional management for parents and gender equality training for teachers in schools
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Awareness-raising in schools through workshops given by university students on human rights and values for boys and girls
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Developing pedagogical material on human rights educatio
Contents
The content of the human rights training course at the university level is as follows:
- Human Rights. Didactic unit.
- Objectives of Sustainable Development. Didactic unit.
- Gender equality and eradication of violence against women. Didactic unit.
- Environment and sustainability. Didactic unit.
- Peace, justice and coexistence. Didactic unit.
- Protection of people at risk ok vulnerability. Didactic unit.
- Democracy and participation. Didactic unit.
- COVID FORMAT. Didactic unit.
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”.