Bringing Human Rights to Life - Our 2016 Schools' Programme

This month, The Mary Robinson Centre began an exciting new programme to bring human rights alive in schools across the community in Mayo. We received an enthusiastic welcome from students at Gortnor Abbey, Crossmolina, St Patrick’s, Lacken Cross, and St Mary’s Secondary School, Ballina, where we spent several days talking to students about the timely issues of human rights and migration. 

​Students in all three schools were very engaged and asked reasoned and inquisitive questions throughout. At the end of sessions, students brainstormed ways we could improve our response to the current refugee crisis in Europe, coming up with a range of answers our leaders might learn from! We'll be sharing some of these responses on social media as we think they're too good to keep to ourselves.

​A limited number of pilot sessions are still available in May, and The Mary Robinson Centre will be delighted to offer more sessions in the autumn. These talks have been designed to challenge, inspire and engage students of today - and leaders of tomorrow - on the importance of human rights. This pilot session begins with a discussion of the origins of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the significance of human rights for all of us. Talks are tailored to connect with second level students' geography and history programmes and cover patterns of migration - from Ireland's famine to the recent Syrian crisis and it's implications for Europe. 

If your school would like to participate please get in touch with Natasha Price, Academic Coordinator at [email protected] or 087 971 3204 to arrange.   

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