Launch of the Manual for Citizenship and Human Rights Education for Youth in Mauritania

The UNESCO Office for the Maghreb (based in Rabat, Morroco) and the Ministry of Culture and Crafts in Mauritania jointly organize the official launching of the Manual for Citizenship and Human Rights Education for Youth in Mauritania, on 19 and 20 January 2016 in Nouakchott (Mauritania). The event will provide opportunity to exchange with different actors on challenges of human rights and citizenship education in Mauritania today, and on the prospects for further use of the Manual through the training of trainers. Mauritanian experts, researchers and senior officials active in the field of civic education will participate in the conference.

The Manual results from a partnership between UNESCO, the Ministry of Culture and Crafts, and the Mauritanian National Commission for Education, Science and Culture, with the support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).

UNESCO has benefited from the valuable scientific work of a team of Mauritanian experts in the development of the Manual. The team’s mission was to draft 20 thematic sheets. These thematic fact sheets provide knowledge on international conventions and standards in the field of democracy and human rights; a contextualization of the national normative frameworks; key issues to explore with young people, as well as interactive exercises and references to go further in the research and the documentation on the topics covered.

The goal is to enable young people, assisted by trainers and facilitators, to deepen and to put into perspective their knowledge of the values of citizenship and human rights principles through a constant back and forth between the universal ideal and the political, social, cultural and environmental context in which they are located.

Human rights and citizenship education is considered a key factor for youth to appropriate the ideals of freedom and rights that lay foundations to all Nations. The Manual can help the youth of Mauritania to better understand the spirit of human rights, to put it in perspective in their social, political, economic and cultural context, to talk about it, and to exercise their role of informed and enlightened citizens. As for the youth workers, trainers, teachers and educators, professionals or volunteers, they will find concrete ways to encourage young people to engage in active citizenship and to promote human rights.

Since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, nearly 70 years ago, the cornerstone of human rights and freedoms form the essential matrix and a guiding principle of the United Nations and its Member States. In this area, the two dimensions of protection and promotion of human rights are intimately and necessarily related, and that is why the United Nations consider, from a philosophical point of view, that human rights education is in itself an act of realization and protection of the rights and liberties of individuals and societies.