People’s Advocacy Council (PAC)

February 2003Ideas for Helping People to Understand their Human Rights

Audience

  • Find out who you are speaking to and how much information these people have/know about human rights. What has already been done to educate them?Can you see copies of information/materials that have already been used? What activities have the staff from the agency used in this area?
  • Ask someone who knows this audience what the best way would be for them to understand information to be presented. What works? What doesn’t work?
  • Ask someone about the communication skills of the people who will be in the audience…Can everyone speak? Can people understand information by seeing pictures or graphics?
  • Are there any specific rights which would be more important to this audience than others?

Time for the Presentation

  • How much time do you have to present this information? Is it one presentation, more than that or ongoing education? How many minutes/hours for the presentation(s)?
  • What is the attention span of the people in the audience? This is important to know so you can organize the presentation.

Formats

People learn and communicate in different ways. Once you know about your audience you can use the format which will be the best one for them.

There are many different formats you can use such as:

  • Use personal stories for examples of the different human rights…speak directly to people
  • Use real pictures (photos), drawings, graphics, etc. to help people to understand what you are talking about
  • Use a short video
  • Have consumers speak/do the training…contact the People’s Advocacy Council (PAC), Advocates in Action, Mental Health Consumer Advocates, etc.
  • Act out some skits or do a role play on human rights
  • Give people copies of the “Bill of Rights” and other written materials on human rights
  • Discuss the difference between constitutional rights all citizens have (voting, practicing religion, freedom of speech, etc.) vs. rights people who receive services from MHRH have

Activities to Help People to Learn More about their Human Rights

Identify who will be able to continue to help people understand their rights…themselves, family, friends, staff, other advocates, etc.

Some ideas to use to help people to learn and understand human rights include:

  • Cut out photos or pictures from magazines of different items that relate to human rights and then have each person make a poster by choosing the pictures/graphics they want
  • Show people how to make a personal scrapbook with photos of them with the various rights which are the most important to them
  • Let people know what web sites have information on human rights
  • Use games…make a Human Rights Word Search or Human Rights Bingo game
  • Give people a Statue of Liberty pin and talk about the constitutional rights people in the United States have
  • Organize a presentation of the “Price of Rights” play