AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL - GHANA TEACHING FOR FREEDOM (TFF) HRE PROJECT The Teaching For Freedom (TFF) Project is a partnership programme between Amnesty International - Ghana and Amnesty International - Norway. The project undertakes activities in twenty secondary schools and ten Teacher Training Colleges - two and one respectively in each administrative region of Ghana. These activities include the formation of human rights clubs in second cycle schools and organising induction courses for final year teacher trainees in training colleges. The induction courses for teacher trainees cover issues like Human Rights Concepts, Principles of Human Rights Education, Teaching Strategies, and Peer Teaching Practices on Human Rights aspects of the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana. The general aims of the partnership are to build human rights awareness against violations and to recruit a new generation of human rights activists who will contribute towards a society where basic human rights are respected. The main focus are the youth in second cycle schools and final year teacher trainees. The work with second cycle schools involves the formation and monitoring of human rights clubs while that for teacher training colleges involves organizing induction courses for final year students. It is the desire of the stake holders of this project that in the very near future, human rights education would become part of the curriculum of our schools. If this does happen, then Ghana would be on the path to creating a generation of democratic citizens who will have a high regard for human rights, and freedoms in their attempts to bring about growth and development. Response from participants (teachers and students) has been overwhelming in support of the programme. There have been calls on the project by the beneficiaries to endeavour to explore ways of continuing the project for succeeding batches to benefit. Other institutions (colleges/schools) currently not covered by the TFF Project have been requesting for their inclusion. However, due to our limited financial resources we have not been able to heed to such requests. Teaching For Freedom has so far trained over 1,500 teachers on HRE who are currently teaching at the basic levels of our school system in various communities. The School Clubs activities have also exposed over 2,000 students to issues of human rights through debates, drama, talk symposia and club meetings. Through the project,the Ministry of Education and other educational authorities have open their doors to HRE issues who hitherto we found difficult to contact on such matters. The activities of the TFF Project have demystified the notion that human rights issues were the prerogative of only lawyers and politicians in our society. The students and teacher trainees as well as the school authorities benefiting from TFF have drawn closer and identified with human rights issues. We must add that, much as we would have wished to extend our activities, we have not been able to go beyond the pilot schools. Currently we are producing teaching manuals for the teachers on the field. This was developed through collecting the work of the teacher trainees and synthesizing this into the manual. Other manuals produced include training manuals for the Regional Liaison Officers and School Club Patrons. Certificates have also always been presented to participants of the induction courses as a morale booster. The project term is November 1996 - December 1999. Funding from Norway ceases in December, 1999. Extending our activities beyond this period will afford us opportunity to reach a bigger population and also enable us continue our discussions with the educational authorities towards the achievement of our ultimate goal - introducing HRE in our school curricula. Hopefully, if human rights education becomes an integral part of the curriculum, the project would still continue to run its programmes albeit a few changes. The existence of the Teaching for Freedom Project will go a long way to help in the promotion of the human rights ideals of the Constitution of Ghana. Issah Fuseini Project Co-ordinator & Fred Kpoor Project Treasurer ======== Global Human Rights Education listserv ======== Send mail intended for the list to <hr-education@hrea.org>. 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