Article 2 (Ban on Discrimination) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone is entitled to all the human rights without distinction of any kind “such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”.
How does discrimination express itself, why and how were and are human beings excluded und what were and still are consequences of exclusion?
Our project is history-based and present-day approach:
Reference points in history are the discrimination, persecution and elimination of minorities in the National Socialist era and in World War II in Europe. From the perspective of the participating /member states young people have the chance to explore reasons, formation mechanisms and the nature of discrimination of minorities, especially of Jews, Sinti and Romanies, persons with disabilities or of homosexual men and women.
We examine the discrimination of jews in the historical and actual context examined in the framework of a project. On the basis of several biographies the adolescents will be able to investigate what options existed in the past, in order to help excluded and persecuted human beings.
The young people communicate through the teachings of history and draw conclusions for their own action/doing.
In present-day approaches the projects can examine current forms of discrimination and corresponding ideologies of inequality, such as for example anti-Semitism, antiziganism or homophobia.
We encouraged our adolescent to turn against prejudices and the possibility of resulting discrimination, in their direct environment –in schools, in clubs or online. At the same time project participants explore and highlight which organisations, persons and legal means might promote respect and protection of minorities and could be potential partners in the fight against discrimination.
From a pedagogical point of view the theme allows us enough latitude for a number of methodical approaches into the field of antidescrimination-education/pedagogy, in order to create a link to the adolescents’ own experiences.
