On February 28, the Warren Educational Policies Program (WEPP) office participated in the launch event of the “Panorama of Human Rights Education in Brazil: Agencies, Policies, and Actions” held by the Aurora Institute. The Panorama provides an unprecedented roadmap that offers the monitoring of policies in Brazil that the Aurora Institute – an organization from the south of Brazil that works with research and advocacy in favor of Human Rights Education (HRE) in the country – carried out in the last four years. Around 60 stakeholders from both the public and private sectors interested in this issue attended the virtual launch.
From 2019 – 2022, the Institute launched two reports (bienniums 2019-2020 and 2021-2022) which mapped the institutionalization of HRE throughout Brazil. These reports involved the Aurora Institute collecting secondary data on initiatives related to this agenda at the state and federal levels. For this new report, the organization interviewed public officers from all over the country, digging deeper to reveal how governments execute such policies in practice.
Several of these interviewees mentioned the WEPP program, both directly and indirectly, and specifically the performance of the Citizenship and Democracy in School project. By offering educational materials and teachers’ training, the initiative creates spaces that promote a pluralistic dialogue based on mutual respect and recognition of diversity within the classrooms of the Brazilian public education system. The project has grown significantly since its launch in 2016; it currently involves the cooperation of 16 institutional partners, including state and municipal Secretaries of Education, and has trained 2,400 teachers and impacted an estimated 72,000 students.
The Panorama report comes at a timely moment, as WEPP has been making concerted efforts to collaborate with more Brazilian states. Paula Alves, WEPP Program Officer, participated as an invited speaker at the launch event, presenting “The Challenges and Opportunities of HRE in Brazil.” She commented on the program’s impact:
This represents highly favorable feedback of the intense and collective work that the Auschwitz Institute has been carrying out since 2016. We could not be happier to be part of this movement that strengthens HRE in Brazil, especially considering the complex challenges facing schools today, such as the increase in hate speech and polarization.
During the event, the Aurora Institute also shared the main results of the Panorama and a letter containing proposals for important measures that public authorities should consider to strengthen HRE in the country.