The Human Rights Education Resourcebook was first produced in 1997, at the suggestion of participants of the "South-East-North (SEN) Seminar: The Future of Human Rights Education" that took place in Soesterberg, the Netherlands in December 1995. This conference was organised by the Netherlands Helsinki Committee with the generous support of numerous European funders, and involved human rights educationalists from 25 countries.

Since 1997, 500 copies of the HRE Resourcebook have been distributed worldwide, and the electronic version is accessed hundreds of times per month. Given the high demand for this information, and the considerable developments in the HRE field in the last few years, Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) procured funding to produce an updated version. This Resourcebook is possible due to the generous support of the Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute (COLPI), a Soros Foundation-funded agency that is based in Budapest, Hungary. We are most grateful for their willingness to sponsor this edition.

In the last years, numerous new education and training materials have been developed and increasing numbers of governmental and non-governmental agencies have initiated activities in the HRE field. By human rights education, we mean activities organised with the explicit purpose of forwarding understanding and action related to the human rights framework, as contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

One of the difficult decisions that had to be made in developing the Resourcebook was determining which organisations, activities and materials to include. Many, highly qualified organisations are ultimately working to promote a human rights culture, but may not identify themselves in this way. Organisations falling within this so-called gray area include some working in legal education; tolerance and conflict prevention; women’s development; and civics education. In these instances, we had to make case-by-case decisions about the organisations, based on their own indication of the degree to which they formally linked their work with the human rights framework. No doubt, we have made mistakes among those that have been included or excluded from this document, and we apologise in advance for these errors. Due to the electronic nature of this material (it will also posted on the Internet), we can make changes, so we encourage readers to send suggestions.

In developing the updated version of the Resourcebook, we initially consulted HREA’s resource library and files, as well as Internet-based resources. Key staff people involved in the project were Frank Elbers, Information Officer, and Lenore Myka, who interned at HREA during 1998-9.

Since the original version of the HRE Resourcebook, we have added numerous organisations and trainings, as well as an annotated bibliography. We have also expanded our audio-visual materials section to include Internet-based resources, one of the more dramatic developments since 1997. We intended to design a comprehensive yet practical guide that includes the main education and trainings tools, an overview of trainings and courses offered worldwide, contact information and description of the main funders, and a listing of organisations from around the world. Thus we hope that organisations and individuals both novice and experienced in the field of human rights education, in particular those in transitional democracies, will find the HRE Resourcebook to be a useful resource.

You are welcome to photocopy and distribute copies of the HRE Resourcebook, provided that HREA is properly credited. The full text of the Resourcebook can be found on the HREA web site: http://www.hrea.org/pubs/ . Hard copies of the book can be ordered via the Internet (http://www.hrea.org) or via the HREA office in Cambridge (USA):

We hope that you will find the Human Rights Education Resourcebook to be a useful addition to your resource library. You are most welcome to be in touch with us with your feedback and suggestions.

Best wishes for your success,