Human rights education and training

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Human rights can only be achieved through an informed and continued demand by people for their protection. Human rights education promotes values, beliefs and attitudes that encourage all individuals to uphold their own rights and those of others. It develops an understanding of everyone's common responsibility to make human rights a reality in each community.

Human rights education constitutes an essential contribution to the long-term prevention of human rights abuses and represents an important investment in the endeavour to achieve a just society in which all human rights of all persons are valued and respected.

The High Commissioner is the coordinator of United Nations education and public information programmes in the field of human rights (General Assembly Resolution 48/141).

OHCHR is working to promote human rights education by:

• Supporting national and local capacities for human rights education in the context of its Technical Cooperation Programme and through the ACT Project, which provides financial assistance to grass-roots initiatives;
• Developing selected human rights education and training materials;
• Developing selected resource tools, such as a Database on Human Rights Education and Training, a Resource Collection on Human Rights Education and Training and a Web section on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
• Globally coordinating the World Programme for Human Rights Education.

More information on these and related activities is provided in the left column.