The Transformative Potential of Human Rights Education for Youth Engagement in the Community

Abstract

This article examines the potential of human rights education (hre) for youth engagement in promoting human rights and children’s rights for diversity and inclusion. The retrospective study of Speaking Rights, a programme implemented by a community-based organisation for over a decade across Canada, presents the outreach, outcome and approach of youth-led community action projects (cap s). The accessible, practical, relational and reflective approach was generative. The iterative and multi-pronged work provided opportunities for broad outreach and awareness amongst a range of youth-serving organisations. We discuss the transformative prospects of the cap s as illustrative of a broadening of children’s rights and a renewal of hre, along with the limitations of bringing the emancipatory nature of hre to scale, and the need to allow for a critical stance throughout the hre process that includes supporting disruptive spaces to meaningfully tackle injustices.