Human rights is a phrase that we often hear , read about in newspapers, watch being reported in television but unfortunately, it, being violated.  I still have to read about a country that is entirely free of human rights violations, human rights violations that come in all sorts of form that on December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is a declaration that contains thirty articles that shows the rights of each individual.  It is sad, however, that in spite of this declaration, people still suffer because their human rights have been trampled upon.

In its website, it can be seen that the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has a Human Rights Programme. It works, among others, to encourage and disseminate human rights research and to promote education in human rights.

In spite of the programs of many agencies, big or small, that address this concern on human rights, time and again, human rights of people, of individuals, are violated by other people, whether their countrymen or not. How then can human rights violation be addressed? UNESCO, as mentioned above, works to promote education in human rights. How then can an institution like a school, college or university help in promoting education in human rights?

I work in a university in the southern part of the Philippines, the part of the Philippines which some countries advise their citizens from time to time not to visit due to security risks, in other words, not a safe place. The media, through the newspapers and television and radio, portray many times the city where I live as a risky place to be. Maybe, but I have lived in this city for the last thirty years, and I have worked in my university, then a college, for the same number of years, my children were born here and are now grown-up. Our university is a non-sectarian school that caters to students from the city and from the neighboring provinces in the region. Students of different religions and tribes are enrolled in our school; they study in the same classroom, take the same courses, eat at the same cafeteria and maybe even live together in the same dormitory. In short, students of different beliefs, opinions and values co-exist in my school. The school administration tries its best to create an environment for peaceful co-existence of different cultures.

Many of our students have been exposed to or have witnessed human rights violation or even they themselves have had the experience of their human rights being violated. How then can the school environment help them cope with the experience, and how can students understand about human rights? My school does not have a peace education as a subject , but peace education is incorporated as a topic in our values development subjects which are in the curriculum of all programs in our university. 

Just months before I came back to my university after a study leave, my university signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the National Federation of Center for Human Rights Education, Inc., and the Commission of Human Rights – National Capital Region. In this MOA, our university established a Center for Human Rights Education which has the following functions among others: to organize human rights educators as volunteers of the center who will be trained on human rights education, to conduct human rights activities for the students, faculty and staff and to the community, inform the public the different human rights education services the Center is offering. The Center is very young, many in the university are not even aware that such a center exist in the campus. The Center has yet to develop and implement plans that will be able to help raise the human rights awareness and consciousness of the public. It is part of my job to see to it that the Center fulfills its part of the terms stipulated in the Memorandum of Agreement. This partnership of the University with agencies for which the main concern is promoting human rights education is but one of our contributions to the attainment of peace in our region, a region that is but one very small dot in the global map. And by so doing, I shall have contributed my little share in the global search for peace.