The project labelled Human Rights Education is an international partnership of 6 schools with the main aim to improve the level of innovative pedagogical practices in education with special emphasis on the education in the field of human rights, which will be firstly transformed into the relationships between students, their teachers and consequently in local communities. The partnership includes the following countries: Croatia, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey and Slovakia, which is aslo the coordinator of the project. With the exception of Croatian school, all other partner schools have been previously involved in other Erasmus+ projects. Although we, humans, have moved to the 21st century and our educational systems are based on using modern methodologies and progressive ICT tools, practical implementation and following human rights is still a problem present in schools and socieities across Europe. What is more important is the fact that thanks to the availibility of modern technology the misuse of human rights has acquired new forms, like plagiarism, copyright infringement or more and more common cyber bullying, e.g. Having debated these issues on eTwinning, we have come to the conclusion that each one of these 6 project partners has some knowledge about at least one particular innovative pedagogical practice that all the others want to acquire in order to improve the practices at their schools. At the same time, we hope that by doing so we will be able to promote collaborative learning and enhance critical thinking, creative thinking and problem solving skills among our students and to get them actively engaged in their learning process and take responsibility for it. The motivation for the project is based on the UN Declaration on HRE and Training, prepared for the Human Rights Council in 2010 as well as The 2015 ‘Paris Declaration’, ensuring that children acquire social, civic and intercultural competences, by promoting democratic values and fundamental rights, social inclusion and non-discrimination. By doing this project we want to increas empathy, tolerance and respect, and increased student confidence to address bullying. Moreover, we believe that implementing HRE we can decrease cases with disciplinary problems, contribute to positive school attendance, and improved classroom, home and playground relationships. The main goal of this project is to support human rights education by taking it into agenda with its all aspects. We have experienced the topic scientifically, discussed the best and simply applicable solution in the schools and selected the methodology to be applied in our schools. We aim to provide an activity for every single student in school and peer environment apart from ordinary school programme. Academic success, school sport facilities or other artistic and musical facilities only include very less number of students. We have to include everyone in a way that everybody will be able to show an ability to improve his/her self-esteem, self-confidence so feel acceptance in social life. The students will work, guided by their teachers, on subjects as: history of HRE, cyberbullying, school HR policies, creating tools for prevention of misusing HR, peer learning/peer teaching. Familiarizing students with the issue of HRE means that the students will get to know the needs and the fears of a rapidly changing society. Seminars and meetings will be organized for teachers and parents for improving the motivation on the topic and the ways to support the issue of HRE theoretically. The target groups of our project are made up of all the students (respectively 2500 students) and teachers from partner schools, other topically related institutions, trainers and members, and parents of the studetns. By working in mixed international workshops, the students will get a first-hand experience of 'Europe growing together'. They will be led to greater tolerance and acceptance. The concept of sustainability is the most important component in all stages of activities during the project. This means that students acquire skills to take part in social process. It is more about the qualification of students to realize their strengths and weaknesses. By strengthening personal skills (e.g. learning and social skills), through self–assessment and external assessment, students are able to achieve the optimal level in every type of school training and the secured future of young people in today's Europe.
The project called Human Rights Education was an international partnership of 6 schools with the main goal of improving the level of innovative pedagogical practices in education with a special emphasis on education in the field of basic human rights. The project was based on the assumption that the acquisition of theoretical principles about human rights was first reflected in the improvement of relations between students and their teachers, and subsequently also at the local level in the local community. The partnership included the following countries: Croatia, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey and Slovakia, which was also the coordinator of the project. At the time the grant application was submitted, the only newcomer to the Erasmus+ program was a Croatian school, which has logically changed over time. Despite the fact that today represents a modern society based on modern ICT tools, it is still true that respecting each other and thus respecting basic human rights is a constant problem both in schools and in society. The reality is all the worse that, thanks to the availability of modern technologies, abuse of human rights occurs in new, hitherto unknown forms, which are e.g. plagiarism, copyright infringement or, increasingly, cyberbullying. We came to the decision to implement a project with this theme after a discussion in the eTwinning space, while we came to the conclusion that each of these 6 project partners he had some knowledge of at least one specific innovative pedagogical practice that everyone else wanted to acquire in order to improve practice in their schools. At the same time, we believed that by working together, we would succeed in promoting collaborative learning, improving critical thinking, creative thinking, and problem-solving skills among our students. Our motivation to implement the project was based on the UN Declaration on Human Rights, which was drafted by the Human Rights Council in 2010, as well as the "Paris Declaration" of 2015, which ensures that children gain social, civic and intercultural by promoting democratic values and fundamental rights, social inclusion and non-discrimination. The aim of participating in the project was to increase empathy, tolerance and respect and to increase students' self-confidence. Moreover, we still believe that by implementing "HRE" we can reduce cases with disciplinary problems, contribute to improving school attendance and improving relationships in the classroom, at home and on the street. The implementation of this project primarily represents the support of education to respect human rights, among other things, by becoming part of the agenda of a normal day at school. In the project, we did not only look at pupils with good academic results. The selection of participants was always based on mutual support and with regard to the ability to improve their self-esteem, self-confidence, and thus feel accepted in social life. Under the guidance of their teachers, students worked on topics such as: the history of human rights, cyberbullying, school personnel policy, creation of tools to prevent the abuse of human rights, or the so-called peer learning. We regularly organized meetings for project participants with the aim of increasing motivation to support this difficult topic. The target groups of our project were all students and teachers from partner schools, other participating institutions and local agencies and associations for the promotion of equality between people. Thanks to work in mixed international workshops, students gained direct experience with the European dimension of cooperation. The concept of sustainability was the most important part for us during all stages of the project activities.