B3 Ren Arai
On November 2nd, 2021, the members of the Fujii's seminar, including me, visited a high school to hold a "Human Rights Workshop for Children (under 18 years old)". It is one of the representative activities in Fujii's seminar to contribute to achieving the SDGs goal 16. In the essay, I would like to introduce our activity, "Human Right Workshop for Children"!!!
The workshop was devised by associate professor Fujii who is our seminar teacher. The purposes of the workshop are to teach about "Human Rights" for children and promote youth social participation toward social issues. Unfortunately, according to a survey, Japanese youths tend not to have enough interest in "Human Rights" and "Social Participation ." Thus, our goals are not only implementing the workshop that leads to the achievement of SDGs goal 16 but also giving a chance for children to enhance understanding of human rights and youth social participation. Thanks to associate professor Fujii's support, our seminar won the "Utsunomiya University SDGs Promotion Encouragement Award" two years ago.
Certification o f “Utsunomiya University SDGs Promotion Encouragement Award 2021
Then, I describe the contents of the workshop. It consists of "Lecture Part" and "Role Play Part". At the beginning of the workshop, we conduct a "Lecture Part". In this part, we lecture basic knowledge about "Human Rights" to help participants notice that human rights are very familiar and not irrelative things in our lives. Also, we teach about "the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC)" because it is one of the most familiar conventions for children. As a side note, we conduct the role play part based on the Convention on Children's Rights. After the lecture, it is time to proceed "Role Play Part", which is the main part of the workshop. The participants play the role of human rights protection organization's staff, such as NGOs. We, the seminar members, play the role of staff belonging to the government of a fictional nation. In the nation, there are many violations of human rights. The scenario sheet shows the participants can understand what kinds of violations are happening in the nation. They need to claim us, staff that belong to the government, what kinds of human rights should be protected in the nation as members of the organization. Of course, there are a few supportable documents to help their statements. Depending on their ability of statements, they receive funds to improve the nation's situation. After that, the participants should build a town in which human rights are protected, based on the funds that they have got by the negotiation. For instance, if the rights for education are not protected, they need to build schools with the funds. They are making these towns is to write what kinds of facilities they need and why they need them on the worksheet. Finally, the team that made the town where human rights are most protected is the winner. That's all for our workshop. As you can see, the participants could experience the activity of advocacy and understand the importance of human rights by being the staff of human rights protection organizations themselves.
How was our workshop? It sounds interesting, doesn't it? Since there are a lot of points that need to be improved in the workshop, we are brushing up with the members of the seminar day by day. If you are interested in the "Human Right Workshop for Children", please invite us!!! We are looking forward to thinking about human rights with you!!!
Scenario sheet for workshop
(Made by the writer)
※ Due to the rights, the active photos cannot be posted here.