Durrës 18, 19 September 2021– For the second year in a row, the Child Rights Centre CRCA / ECPAT Albania and the Institute for the Promotion of Education in Kosovo, with the support of the Embassies of the Republic of Slovenia in Albania and Kosovo, for teachers from Albania and Kosovo on the protection of children’s rights.
Organized under the auspices of the Ambassador of Slovenia in Tirana, His Excellency Mr. Peter Japlj, children’s rights experts from Slovenia, provided teachers with the knowledge and skills to put children’s rights at the center of their teaching cycle.
During his welcome speech Mr. Japlj stressed that “Slovenia strongly supports the empowerment of children and youth with human rights education. We have been doing this for a long time, since the establishment of structured World Programme for Human Rights Education in 2005. Within the biggest regional organization in the world, the OSCE we proposed an implemented in 2005, a concrete human rights education project “Our Rights” for children. It is based on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child”.
The training, which included about 30 teachers from both countries, provided teachers with basic and necessary knowledge about children rights, their protection, and presented the state of children rights in both countries.
Well-known Ambassador Mrs. Blanka Jamnišek shared with the participants the importance that human rights education plays in preventing human rights violations and contributes significantly to attaining a just society.
According to Mrs. Jamnišek ”Human rights education is therefore essential for establishing and maintaining a democratic, tolerant and sustainable societiesby promoting human values and mutual respect. However, respect for human rights may only be achieved by informing and teaching people, of course children too, of their rights as well as the rights of others and by generating an active interest in these rights at both the individual and community levels”
During the training, teachers were informed on UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, national legislation for the protection of the rights of the child, national mechanisms and institutions responsible for the protection of children’s best interests.
Until now, many more than 200.000 children took part in this project in 26 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa. This project has been implemented inAlbania, Azerbaijan, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Egypt, Gaza (Palestine), Germany, Georgia, India, Ireland, Jordan, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine. Minorities’ children were also involved, including Roma children in several countries in South-Eastern Europe.