OSCE Yerevan Office presents its views on human rights to secondary school teachers

YEREVAN, 30 June 2006 - An OSCE human rights expert shared her knowledge today with 55 secondary school teachers who are taking a year-long class on human rights.

Silvia Pogolsa, a Human Rights Officer at the OSCE Office in Yerevan, delivered a lecture as part of the course, organized annually by the non-governmental organization Armenian Constitutional Right-Protective Centre.

That centre has organized a Human Rights School since 1996, and 405 participants, mainly secondary school teachers, have so far taken part in the programme, which includes 11 months of distance learning and one month of intensive education.

"OSCE considers human rights and democracy explicit elements of the overall security framework, assigning them the same level of importance as politico-military and economic security issues," Pogolsa said. "We believe education in and for human rights is one of the effective means of creating peaceful and stable societies."

The Office donated the latest OSCE publications on human rights and good governance to the NGO's Human Rights Library, which consists of six libraries in different Armenian towns.

The lecture was part of the Office's human rights education and public awareness raising programme, which started in 2001. The Office also has produced documentary movies on human rights issues and organized public screenings of those movies. It is preparing a series of Public Service Announcements on torture, tolerance and non-discrimination and other human rights issues to be broadcast on national TV-stations starting in September 2006.