In recent years, the respect for human rights has been eroded in different parts of Europe and young people must unify their voices to remind the decision makers and citizens at large that human rights should never be neglected or instrumentally sacrificed for other causes, such as the fight against COVID-19.

With the Work Plan 2022 ‘Human rights and Youth- the Right thing to do!’, JEF Europe aims at raising awareness of human rights among the European youth and equipping them with the tools to counter human rights violations.

Objectives

The objectives of the Work Plan are to:

• Develop young people’s knowledge and understanding of specific human rights and equip them with tools to promote them on a local/European level.
• Raise human rights awareness among high school students through offline and online civic education activities.
• Promote young people’ access to human rights and stronger protection mechanisms through solidarity and advocacy actions.
• Build a more inclusive and resilient space for young people to support the implementation of human right mechanisms on the local and European level.

Main activities

Activity 1: Expert Meeting – Consultation on civic education focusing on Human Rights with youth (Online, 25-27 February 2022)
The consultation on civic education aims to specify young people’s needs in human rights education and create the essential civic education material for the upcoming project sessions. The specific objectives are to draft a concept note for 2 non-formal education capacity-building seminars. Secondly, during this meeting with experts, a You(th) Rights toolkit will be drafted to promote and defend (youth) human rights.

Activity 2a: International Seminar – Capacity-building training seminar on human rights for young volunteers (Budapest, 18-22 May 2022)
The aim of the seminar, through a non-formal education approach, is to develop the skills of the participants to implement solidarity actions as well as transfer these newly-acquired skills and knowledge to their peers through local follow-up training sessions. In addition, trainers will share the toolkit and guidelines created during the consultation meeting (activity 1) to the participants who will discuss them. 

Activity 2b: Local training sessions – Young people and Human Rights. Doing the right thing! (Europe, June – September 2022)
Participants of the International Seminar in Budapest, with the support of the project team and expert partners, will use the ideas they developed during the event to implement activities in their own community. They will organise local training sessions focused on human rights for interested young people and those working with youth. 

Activity 3: International Seminar – Capacity building training seminar on human rights for high school students (Edinburgh, 7-11 September 2022)
This seminar will provide an opportunity to youth workers and young volunteers to participate in training to develop their skills and knowledge in non-formal education (NFE), with a focus on the promotion of human rights and awareness-raising of their violations (both offline and online), with a later intention to implement local follow-up activities with high school students. The toolkit and guidelines, created during the expert meeting (activity 1) will be discussed again and adapted to the needs of high school students). 

Activity 4: School interventions – Young people and Human Rights. What about yours? (Europe, September to November 2022)
With their newly acquired skills and knowledge, the participants of previous project seminars supported by experts, will organise non-formal educational activities for high school students on the topic of human rights.

Activity 5: Closing events on Human Rights’ day (Europe, December 2022)
JEF Europe will organise a ‘3-day closing hub event’ which will take place simultaneously in different countries of Europe and will be linked with the Human RIghts Day. The main aim of the final conference will be to raise the awareness of policy makers about the importance of human rights promotion and fight against their violations, and especially towards young people and discriminated communities and have discussion in different countries with different actors/stakeholders at European and national level.