Cambridge, 29 March 2005 -- On 25 and 26 March, HREA organised an introductory training workshop on human rights monitoring at the International Center for Tolerance Education in New York. The workshop familiarised participants with international and regional human rights standards, and the principles and goals for monitoring human rights. In break-out sessions, techniques for documenting and monitoring closed institutions (e.g. prisons, psychiatric hospitals) and gender-based violence (incl. domestic violence and violence against women in armed conflict) were demonstrated and discussed.

The workshop was attended by staff members of human rights and social justice NGOs, UN specialised agencies, graduate students from Columbia University and New York University, and alumni of distance leaning HREA courses. "This was a wonderful opportunity to meet others working on different issues", commented one of the twenty participants. Similar introductory workshops on human rights monitoring will be held in New York and Amsterdam later this year.

Unique to the workshop was the participation of a small group of 9th grade students from the School for Human Rights in Brooklyn (New York). The students participated in some of the plenary sessions with the adult participants yet also had their own programme. For the students this was an overwhelmingly successful event. One of the students told HREA's Programme Associate Jessamyn Waldman: "Ms Waldman, I will never forget this day!".