[hr-education] 2003 UN Prize in the Field of Human Rights

Dear friends,

Today marks Human Rights Day! Today PDHRE's founder and director,
Shulamith Koenig, will be one of the five recipients of the UN Human
Rights Prize -- this deserves special attention as it is important for all
who work in human rights education towards social change! It is the first
time that this UN prize is given to a human rights educator.

The President of the Un General Assembly has announced on the 2nd of
December the five recipients of the UN Human Rights Prize. This award has
been given to five people every five years, since 1968. Ms. Enriqueta
Estela Barnes de Carlotto (President of the Asociación Abuelas de Plaza de
Mayo), the Mano River Women's Peace Network (MARWOPNET, West Africa), Mr.
Pufang Deng (founder and director of the China Disabled Persons'
Federation), the Family Protection Project Management Team (Jordan) and
Shulamith Koenig.

(During the years earlier recipients of the human rights UN prize
included, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy
Carter, James Grant and many wonderful people who have advanced the cause
of human rights around the world - the full list can be found on the UN
website:  http://www.un.org/events/humanrights/)

Ms. Koenig of the United States is the Executive Director of PDHRE, the
People's Movement for Human Rights, which she had founded in 1988 with the
goal of creating a global human rights culture.

  To that end, Ms. Koenig had

- advocated global action at the community level for societal change
through human rights education for social and economic transformation with
a gender perspective, as relevant to people's daily lives.

- worked tirelessly and successfully to have the UN declare a Decade for
Human rights educations ; and

- to support the Decade organized consultations and workshops on human
rights education as a strategy for human, social and economic development
with educators, human rights advocates and community leaders in more than
60 countries;

- these for the purpose of developing critical thinking about political,
civil, economic, social and cultural concerns within a human rights
framework that leads to action for social justice.

- initiated the "Human Rights Cities"project, which is supported by the
United Nations Development Programme as a three-year global programme to
develop 30 human rights cities and train 500 young community leaders as
human rights educators to strengthen the holistic vision of human rights
as a way of life, involve civil society in promoting human rights and
strengthen democracy as a delivery system for human rights.

For more information see: www.pdhre.org




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