Where do universal human rights begin?
In small places close to home and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world...

Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.
— Eleanor Roosevelt, 1958

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Our work has been inspired by what Eleanor said and since our first event we are not trying to redraw the world's borders. We are trying to change what happens in rooms: classrooms, youth centres, rehearsal spaces, community halls, online sessions, policy labs. If human rights do not change how a group is formed, how a decision is made, or how a story is heard in those places, they will not change much anywhere else.

— Oksana, CWM Trainer and Facilitator

Download the HRE Framework (PDF)

What are human rights, in plain language?

Human rights are the equal entitlements of every person — civil, political, economic, social and cultural — recognised in international law and owed to everyone, without discrimination.

They are not granted by a state, a foundation, or a facilitator. They cannot be withdrawn by a vote. They begin with the simple claim that every human being has dignity — and that dignity has consequences in how a room is run.

Dignity is not granted by a facilitator and cannot be withdrawn by a group vote.

Three directions of human rights education

One room, three movements.

Human rights education is not a single activity. It moves in three directions at once.

About

Education about human rights

Knowledge of principles, instruments and institutions — the explicit "about" that orients a group to the law, the language and the architecture behind a claim.

Through

Education through human rights

The way the room itself is run. Participation, inclusion, respect, access — practised in the structure of the workshop, not only described in the slides.

For

Education for human rights

The capacity to defend rights — including other people's. A room that leaves a participant better able to act, with or without us in it.

Seven rights. Seven rooms.

The clusters below are the rights our work moves through. Tap any tile to see how we practise it — the method we use and the instrument it draws on.

MethodImage Theatre and ritual opening — the body learns safety before it learns argument.

InstrumentUDHR Art. 3 · ICCPR Art. 7 · CRC Art. 19

MethodForum Theatre — a participant rehearses the moment an audience member intervenes against discrimination.

InstrumentICERD · CEDAW · ECHR Art. 14 · Protocol 12

MethodLegislative Theatre and circle dialogue — the room is opened for the participant to change the plan, not only respond to it.

InstrumentCRC Art. 12 · ICCPR Art. 25 · CRPD Art. 4–5

MethodMultimodal storytelling — sensory, oral, written and image-based entry points co-designed with participants.

InstrumentCRPD Art. 2, 9, 19

MethodStorytelling, Image Theatre and devised scene work — language, gesture, image, sound, and silence as equal channels.

InstrumentICCPR Art. 19 · ICESCR Art. 15 · CRC Art. 13

MethodNon-formal education pedagogy — question-based, experience-based, co-facilitated by young people where appropriate.

InstrumentCRC Art. 28–29 · ICESCR Art. 13 · UNESCO Recommendation 1974

MethodForum Theatre and community ritual — group rehearsal of dissent, refusal and solidarity, in a room that returns to the circle.

InstrumentICCPR Art. 22 · CoE Charter on EDC and HRE (2010)

Our practice lineage

Tools we did not invent, but use in rooms every week.

Council of Europe Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education COMPASS and Compasito UNESCO Global Citizenship Education EU Youth Strategy 2019–2027 Erasmus+ and SALTO Paulo Freire Augusto Boal Council of Europe Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education COMPASS and Compasito UNESCO Global Citizenship Education EU Youth Strategy 2019–2027 Erasmus+ and SALTO Paulo Freire Augusto Boal

We do not own these instruments. We operationalise them in rooms.

Frameworks we work within

The architecture behind the room, in plain language.

These are the instruments we draw on. Expand a group to see the plain-language reading — not the full legal register. The complete legal architecture, with binding/non-binding status and any updates, lives in our downloadable HRE Framework (PDF).

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)1948The shared, foundational statement of what every person is owed.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)1966The binding treaty for civil and political rights — speech, vote, assembly, fair trial.

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)1966The companion treaty for work, education, health, culture and an adequate standard of living.

Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)1989The most ratified human rights treaty in history — children as rightsholders, not subjects.

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)1979The international bill of rights for women and girls, across every domain.

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)1965The first UN human rights treaty — racial equality as obligation, not aspiration.

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)2006Disability as a question of rights, access and accommodation — not charity.

UNESCO Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms1974The first international instrument to define human rights education as a field.

World Programme of Action for Youth1995The UN framework connecting youth policy to rights, participation and development.

UNESCO Global Citizenship Education (GCED)2014–GCED as the operational language for "education for" human rights and sustainability together.

UN Secretary-General's Our Common Agenda2021The current UN frame for intergenerational fairness, youth voice and a renewed social contract.

European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)1950The binding treaty enforced by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Protocol No. 12 to the ECHR2000A general, freestanding prohibition of discrimination in the enjoyment of any right.

Council of Europe Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education2010The CoE's explicit definition of EDC and HRE — and our most direct operational document.

EU Charter of Fundamental Rights2000The binding bill of rights for EU institutions and for Member States when applying EU law.

EU Youth Strategy 2019–20272019The current EU frame for youth — Engage, Connect, Empower — and our youth work anchor.

Erasmus+ and SALTO2014–The funding and resource network through which most of our European work travels.

The full legal architecture — including the legal status of each instrument — is in our downloadable Human Rights Education Framework (PDF), reviewed to a legal standard for our board.

Insights & Policy

Notes tied to real policy moments.

Short, evidence-based notes — each one tied to a real EU or UN policy moment, showing how theatre-based human rights education operationalises the point.

In Design

State of Youth Voice Through Theatre

An annual reading of where young people are, and are not, present in EU and Council of Europe youth policy — measured through their actual appearance in our rooms.

In design

Voices of the Future, local and theatre-based

A municipal-scale companion to the global report: each edition rooted in one city, told through Forum Theatre scenes produced with local young people.

In design

Youth Check companion methodology

A facilitation tool that lets a youth worker run a rights impact check on their own programme — using theatre prompts, not paperwork.

First edition planned

Intergenerational Fairness Day · 16 November

An annual public reading of how today's decisions hold up against tomorrow's rights — anchored in our UNESCO and Our Common Agenda work.

In Design

Rights-mapping on every method page

Every CWM facilitation method page now names the rights cluster it practises and the instruments it draws on. No method without a rights anchor.

In design

Youth rapporteur / co-author

A standing role, named publicly on every report we publish, with a young person as a co-author of the framing — not a token paragraph.

Who the work is with

We don't deliver to people. We work alongside them.

Generally

Young people — adolescents and early adulthood, including those furthest from existing policy rooms
Youth workers and non-formal education practitioners
Community organisations, civil society and grassroots groups
Public institutions — municipalities, schools, libraries, cultural institutions

In the Netherlands

Municipal human rights and inclusion teams
The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights (College voor de Rechten van de Mens)
The National Ombudsman and the Children's Ombudsman
Youth councils and migrant-, refugee- and disability-led organisations
Schools, ROCs and cultural institutions