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Human dignity is the core of human rights and human rights education, and is granted to all human beings irrespective of faith, birth, gender or background.
Human rights education needs a three-dimensional approach to be effective:
(a) Knowledge-based (to know about human rights: e.g. the history of rights, how democracy functions);
(b) Skills-based (for human rights: self-knowledge and self-awareness, realising your own prejudices);
(c) Environment-based (in or through human rights: creating a “whole-school policy”).
The Human Rights and Humanitarian unit operate within AU Watch’s Pan-African Institute for AU Studies. The Unit hosts many human rights projects like the Human Rights and Humanitarian projects, the International Human Rights Clinic, the War Crimes Research Office, Impact Litigation Project, Women and International Law project and the UN CPTA Anti-torture Project.
What Are We Offering?
We offer a range of training on issues across the humanitarian and human rights agenda. Drawing on its roster of international experts, our Academy provides standard, advanced, or bespoke training to meet the needs of any organisation interested in:
⦁ increasing understanding of humanitarian and human rights issues;
⦁ refining skills to implement human rights due diligence;
⦁ developing internal competencies on specific topics;
⦁ addressing real world human rights and humanitarian dilemmas.
The Academy includes global experts from the worlds of business, academia and civil society.
Fostering Civic Engagement and Inclusivity
The promotion and protection of human rights is at the centre of the attainment of Agenda 2063. Africa will not change, and this generation of Africans will not be ready for 2063, if human rights are not prioritized. There are hundreds of millions of young people with no idea of what the African Human System is. Embarrassingly, there are hundreds of thousands of political scientists, jurists, prison, police officials and military personnel who’ve never heard of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, let alone to understand what the African Human Rights System is. AU Watch is changing all of that! If we are to hold our institutions and leaders accountable, all of us must understand the system within which we all operate. And we are of the firm view that education is the way forward.
At AU Watch the educational principle of citizenship education includes human rights education. We are working at advocacy methods so that every school in Africa should be teaching citizenship education, right from primary school. We are materials on citizenship education from nursery through “History and Citizenship Education”, which also comprises teaching on topics of human rights.
We are developing stimulating educational human rights programs for primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. We are also working to produce materials to bring Schools and teachers up to speed to enable them to teach citizenship and human rights education into the classroom.
We support local and community based human rights initiatives. We organize public events and develop tailor-made trainings for larger audiences. Together with experts from academia, activism, the arts, journalism, politics and the corporate sector, our Human Rights and Humanitarian Unit explore critical social justice issues all over Africa.
“It defies belief that subjects like the African Human Rights System, Agenda 2063, AGA are not taught right from primary schools. It makes no sense. How do you change Africa … how do you get the citizens of Africa to participate in a project they know little about? Why not include these studies in the curriculum?”
Dr Feyi Ogunade (Executive Director, AU Watch)
Our Academic Program
The Unit is a trans-disciplinary centre of excellence for international academic research, teaching and critical scholarship on the study and understanding of the African Human Rights System. We are currently engaged in research and designing curriculum related to human rights citizenship education for primary and secondary schools’ in Africa.
We run two human rights and two development courses namely Certificate course in human rights and Diploma in human rights and certificate in development and diploma in development under the academic supervision of the Legacy University, The Gambia. At the university level, the Unit undertakes such activities as strengthening of existing HR teaching programmes, organizing guest lectures, awareness and training of trainer’s workshops, research and publications.
For more Information, click here.
Corporate Training
We provide bespoke training for teams that regularly address human rights-related issues. Training covers industry-sector, country-specific, or thematic human rights dilemmas and challenges tailored to support a range of functions – legal and compliance, supply chains and procurement, corporate communications, human resources, corporate responsibility, sustainability.
Organisations that would benefit from our Academy training include businesses, trade associations, embassies, academic institutions, government departments, and not-for-profit entities.
To discuss your organisation’s human rights training needs, contact the Director of our Human Rights Program, Mr Dieu-Donne Wedi Djamba at [email protected]
CSOs Training
AU Watch designs training specifically for non-governmental and civil society organisations to help them navigate the complicated process of engaging with the myriad different complex layers of multinational corporate entities. To discuss your organisation’s human rights training needs, contact the Director of our Human Rights Program, Mr Dieu-Donne Wedi Djamba at [email protected]
Our Staff
