In the year 2000, the Directorate of Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe organised the first Human Rights Education Forum at the European Youth Centre in Budapest. The forum built on the action month, ‘Europe – Youth – Human Rights’ organised in Budapest to mark the 50^th Anniversary of the Council of Europe in 1999.

The first Forum on Human Rights Education gathered activists and multipliers in youth and human rights organisations who, together with representatives of institutions and experts, mapped the needs and opportunities for human rights education with young people across Europe.

The forum’s most important and visible outcome has been the shaping of the Human Rights Education Youth Programme. This programme has been running since 2001 and has embodied the work of the Directorate of Youth and Sport in relation to the promotion of the core mission and values of the Council of Europe related to human rights and democracy.

The Human Rights Education Youth Programme has been established in order to “bring human rights education into the mainstream of youth work and youth policy”. In other words, the programme has built on the potential of youth work and non-formal learning to strengthen human rights, while human rights education has contributed to anchor youth work and non-formal education within the human rights ethical, political and normative framework.

The programme was centred initially on the development of educational resources that would facilitate the access to human rights education methodologies by youth workers, occasional trainers and facilitators. ‘Compass - a manual on human rights education with young people’ was developed for this purpose, providing background information on key human rights issues as well as practical activities to bring human rights issues closer to young people and to motivate young people to be active for human rights.

With ‘Compass’ at its centre, the programme has quickly developed in ways that have made it one of the most successful initiatives of the Council of Europe’s youth sector in recent years:

• The training of trainers and multipliers in human rights education who have, as a consequence, acted as advocates and resource people for human rights education at national and local level
• The translation and publication of Compass into 25 languages (more are in progress), effectively making it accessible and usable by human rights educators in the formal and non-formal education sector
• The support for key regional and national training activities for teacher and youth worker trainers in the member states, organised in cooperation with national organisations and institutions
• Support to local initiatives and pilot projects carried out by young people by the European Youth Foundation
• The development of formal and informal networks of organisations and educators for human rights education through non-formal learning approaches at European and national levels
• The mainstreaming of human rights education approaches and methods in the overall programme of activities of the Directorate of Youth and Sport
• The development of innovative training and learning approaches and quality standards for human rights education and non-formal learning, such as the introduction of e-learning by the Advanced Compass Training in Human Rights Education
• Providing the educational approaches and resources for the ‘All Different – All Equal’ European youth campaign for Diversity, Human Rights and Participation
• The dissemination of the Living Library as a methodology for intercultural learning, combating stereotypes and prejudices
• The provision of the political and educational framework for intercultural dialogue activities, such as those run in the context of Euro-Mediterranean, Euro-Arab and Asia-Europe youth projects, as well as those run within the Youth Partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe
• The launching of the process leading to the adoption of common standards and objectives for human rights education and education for democratic citizenship by the member states in the form of a Charter or similar policy instrument, in cooperation with the Steering Committee on Education.

In addition to Compass, the Human Rights Education Programme has also provided the context for the development of other resources for human rights education in general or for specific issues related to the “promotion of equality in dignity” – the purpose of human rights education, as adopted in the programme:

- Compasito - manual for human rights education with children

- Gender Matters – manual on gender-based violence affecting young people

- Companion, A campaign guide about education and learning for change in Diversity, Human Rights and Participation

- Don’t judge a book by its cover - The Living Library organisers’ guide

- The revised versions of the Education Pack ‘All Different – All Equal’ and of DOmino, educational manuals against racism, antisemitism, xenophobia and intolerance

- Mosaic – the T-Kit for Euro-Mediterranean youth work

- An online human rights education resource centre making these materials accessible to a wide audience and allowing for interaction among users (www.coe.int/compass).