A curriculum for advancing the UN CRPD – in six languages

Organization
Syracuse University, Burton Blatt Institute
Country of Implementation
United States of America
Region
North America
First published
31.01.2016

The aim is to create a flexible and adaptable yet comprehensive curriculum centred on the core concepts of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). By 2016 the curriculum has been utilized in training in more than 15 countries on six continents and has reached more than 5,000 disability advocates and allies.

Enabling Human Rights_PRA_Picture1
A project for the Institute for Peace and Reconciliation at Handong University in Korea translated the HR-Yes curriculum into Korean.

Solution details

People

Janet E. LORD
“The curriculum consists of an accessible and easy-to-use training manual, and provides a major resource to strengthen advocacy and human rights education.” Ms. Louise Arbour, Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Problems Targeted

With the adoption of the CRPD in 2006, very few DPOs were equipped to engage proactively in the disability rights law and policy advocacy needed to implement the convention, and they had little or no familiarity with its core concepts. Moreover, there were no materials that provided a comprehensive, participatory curriculum on the CRPD that could be used to address a wide variety of training needs and audiences.

Solution, Innovation and Impact

The project provides a methodology and core content for running disability-rights education trainings for a wide variety of audiences, from grassroots DPOs to national government decision-makers. The model is highly flexible and adaptable to local circumstances, provides examples from around the world, and can be used in diverse educational contexts ranging from law schools, to informal grassroots workshops, to national electoral and human rights commissions, to mixed audiences from DPOs and government. Notably, the curriculum is widely disseminated and available for download free of charge in various formats. Moreover, the curriculum has generated a number of companion materials among partners, including two manuals published by the Harvard Law School Project on Disability in easy-to-read language for advocates with developmental disabilities.

Funding, Outlook and Transferability

The flexible curriculum provides step-by-step instructions for facilitators to run participatory exercises, as well as sample agendas for building workshop programmes designed in accordance with stakeholders’ needs. Going forward, the curriculum will be translated into Mandarin through a new partner at Wuhan University. The project is currently seeking new partnerships with DPOs in developing countries and looking at running workshops at major human rights education and disability rights conferences.

Media

Pictures

Enabling Human Rights_PRA_Picture1 A project for the Institute for Peace and Reconciliation at Handong University in Korea translated the HR-Yes curriculum into Korean.

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Related information

Solutions with the same:

Country of Implementation

United States of America

Region of Implementation

North America