For the next article in my “Hacking Diversity” series I wanted to highlight a non-tech oriented organization. The World As It Could Be Human Rights Education Program is taking a unique approach to youth empowerment and education. They use the creative arts to introduce youth to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), creating unique opportunities for diverse groups (students teachers, community members) to actively engage with issues of human rights and social justice.
While raising awareness about the UDHR the project also seeks
to:
- Engage youth in ways that inspire learning, critical thinking and positive social interaction
- Encourage youth who are often marginalized due to learning or physical differences to enjoy participation in school-wide events
- Encourage the broader community to support and celebrate the accomplishments of youth
- Showcase the value of the creative arts to personal development and a vibrant culture
- Provide collaborative opportunities among non-profits, public schools and universities
The two main initiatives of the project currently are:
- Distribution and continued development of a project-based high school curriculum that meets high school requirements for teaching the UDHR, and congruent teacher training institutes.
- To provide a community led Rite of Passage program at the REACH Ashland Youth Center to initiate and celebrate youth as engaged members of a healthy community. This program, called The World As It Could Be Is Within REACH, will provide a model that can be replicated in other communities.
I was able to
interview Program Director, Sandy Sohcot in order to gain a deeper
understanding of this project.
Question: Could you
provide me with some background on the program?
The World As It Could
Be Human Rights Education Program, began as a project of the Rex Foundation in 2006. It is as a series of initiatives that all use
the creative arts as a mechanism for raising awareness about the UDHR. The primary initiative is the development of
a curriculum for high school students that teaches them about the Declaration and integrates the creative arts as a
tool for increasing comprehension of the concepts and as a vehicle for the
students to share their ideas. The
Declaration is supposed to be taught in high schools as a part of Social
Studies standards but often is not, yet it is an important frame of reference
for inspiring high school students to become more engaged in the community. We
also provide resources on our website for teachers. This past Fall we started a Rites of Passage
program at the REACH Ashland Youth Center
called, The World As It Could Be Is Within REACH. It is a 9-month program with a class of 11 youth from the Center ranging in age from 13 to
early 20s. The program was created by leaders within REACH that all represent
different agencies within the county and essentially function as “elders”
within that community who are helping to initiate young people as a part of the
community. We want the youth participating
in the program to have a sense of what a healthy community is about, including
an understanding of human rights, what their role is in creating a healthy
community, and understand that they are vital members of a healthy community. On
May 15 the students will put on their own culminating presentation and share
what they have learned from the program with the community. This presentation serves as both a way to
celebrate their commitment and accomplishments and also inspire other young
people to become involved themselves.
Question: What was the
motivation for this project; why do you feel that this work is important?
When I first began
working on this I just really wanted to bring to life the idea of the Human
Rights framework because it can unite the various struggles for civil rights,
women’s rights, gay rights, etc… While I was at the Rex Foundation I
commissioned an original production created by youth called, “The World As It
Could Be: A Declaration of Human Rights”. I wanted young people to have a voice
in this effort and I wanted to showcase the work of organizations using the
arts to work with youth. In creating
this piece we found that when the youth learned about the UDHR they got very
excited. They felt like it gave them
something to fight for. Everyone, adults and youth, were surprised that they
had not known much about this document and yet recognized it’s significance in
really providing a framework that can guide constructive behaviors to stop
conflicts and promote peace and positive solutions. The use of the arts was vital in getting this
message out. It allowed them another way
to really engage with the concepts in the document other than just reading it.
Question: What do you feel is
innovative about your approach (content, delivery, etc…), that distinguish this
program from other youth programs that focus on social justice or leadership
development?
Part of what makes it
innovative is that the curriculum really encourages a lot of critical thinking
and creativity in the expression of the UDHR concepts. We do not see ourselves as taking the place
of any other youth organizations that focus on social justice, in fact we feel
that exposing young people to this document provides additional context for
work in other areas. A lot of the social
justice movements are a vehicle for supporting the human rights of various
groups. It opens up a different
perspective that helps to connect seemingly disparate efforts. The use of this idea of a Rite of Passage is
also helpful in that it allows the young people to take on a teaching role in
sharing the ideas in this document. They
are given the opportunity to be leaders and teachers and so take on a different
level of ownership over the ideas.
Could you say more
about this idea of the Rite of Passage and how you are using it and connecting
it to teaching the UDHR?
I gained knowledge about Rites of Passage from my own experience and
more recently from work being done by Frederick Marx, a documentary filmmaker
whose current work is on the importance of Rites of Passage for youth. A Rite of Passage is basically a process by
which young people gain a greater awareness of themselves in their
community. One particular Rite of Passage
that I am familiar with is the Jewish Bar or Bat Mitzvah. The idea in The World as it Could Be is to
use the UDHR as a kind of “sacred text” that the young people learn and reflect
upon. The culminating presentation then
serves as their Rite of
Question: Why does
this program attract such a diverse body of young people and how do you nurture
their diverse voices and perspectives?
What’s been really
interesting is that there is just something about the UDHR that really resonates
with high school students. It is actually
hard to describe it, when it first happened I didn’t anticipate the response
that it would get from students. The
realization that these rights exist seems to compel the youth to ask, first of
all, am I getting all of these rights? If not, what do I need to think about to
work toward them? It seems to compel
constructive action. It also provides a
point of entry for young people who feel like they have been marginalized in
some way. A group of kids at Balboa High
who have various physical and mental challenges and do not traditionally get a
chance to participate in mainstream school activities were able to learn about
the UDHR and get onstage and assert their right to be a part of the school community
and to be seen as people. There is just
something about learning it. The youth are very impressed by the Articles, they
see that they are represented in them.
Question: How does
the commitment to diversity and equity shape or influence the work (in the development of curriculum, identification
of facilitators, delivery of content, ect… )?
It’s
at the essence of it, human rights, by their definition, means that every human
being, no matter what their skin color, religion, gender, nationality, no
matter what characteristic you might say… every person is to be honored and
experience all of the rights spelled out by the Universal Declaration. The content in and of itself promotes that
attitude. Through the curriculum we seek
to create ways for each participant to have a voice. The intention is really for every single
student to have an opportunity to participate and the arts helps to facilitate
this because there are different ways that people can express themselves:
through visual art, or movement, or a song, or spoken word... There is no limit; each person’s spirit can
be reflected. We also seek to have a diverse group of people act as
facilitators. We would also like to see
some of the teachers that we have trained become facilitators. In addition, we
try to train ourselves to be very cognizant of the emotional and charged nature
of this work. We seek to be mindful and
prepared to really be able to help people hear and communicate about very
personal issues related to human rights. We try to create a safe place for
people to be able to contemplate and express their ideas about these issues so
that they can be discussed in a way that can facilitate positive change.
In my article, “Hacking Diversity” I talked about the
importance raising questions. I assert
that solutions begin as questions, therefore, the question that gets asked and
who is asking influence the solution.
The most powerful thing about this project is that it motivates young
people, whose voices are traditionally marginalized, to raise important
questions about our world and their place in it. They ask, what does it mean to have human
rights-- the right to an education, the right to equal protection of the law,
the right to work…? What does it mean to
assert and defend these rights? More
importantly, the culminating presentation carves out a literal and figurative
space in which they are able to publicly give voice to these questions, thereby
becoming an integral part of the solution.