Today Belize joined the world in observing Human Rights day. While in previous years the day might have been used to shine a spotlight on the human rights and the wrongs of countries, this year the focus is on human rights education. And that was the topic at a forum on "People value people - this is human rights," this morning at the House of Culture. Leading the discussion was Hillary Hunt from the Human Rights Center at UB who says human rights starts with education but it doesn't end at school.
Hlllary Hunt, UB Center for Human Rights Study
"It is to gather together people from all different walks of life are involved in social development activities whether its education, whether its empowering people, awareness training, or providing services to people to make them realize we are all working under the same umbrella even if we don't realize it. NGOs and government agencies are all about protecting and fulfilling people's rights and trying to make life better for them and that's what human rights is all about."
"The realization is that human rights education has to be a life long learning process. It has to be integrated. It is part of our lives, we have these rights and we need to know about them so we can respect those rights, take the responsibility for respecting other people's rights, and defending our own."
"We are talking today about the fact that we people already do in this country is human rights education but there is a great value in recognizing it as such and bringing together under that umbrella and strengthening what people are already doing and making linkages between the agencies which are involved in human rights education."
Today's observance of human rights day coincided with the end of the united Nations international decade of human rights and was marked by a special session of the UN General Assembly in New York. At that session member countries are expected to proclaim a world program for human rights with provision for human rights education in primary and secondary schools. Today's forum was coordinated by the UB human rights center, Human Rights Commission of Belize, and Spear.