Foyer des Jeunes des Marolles in Brussels, Belgium, organised and hosted the first training course on human rights education based on Compasito, the manual for human rights education with children.

The course was held from 22 to 26 November and brought together participants from a variety of professional backgrounds but all committed to education and social work with children and young people. The young people who will be the final beneficiaries of the course often feel distant from the reality and concepts of human rights as they tend to be subject to discrimination and other human rights violations.

 The training programme was structured in the pillars:

• Basic notions of human rights, historical evolution and the current context;
• Human rights in the Council of Europe, resources and standards for human rights education such as Compass, Compasito and the Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education
• Practising Compasito by preparing and running activities from the manual with children and young people of the centre Foyer des Jeunes des Marolles.

According to the participants the main learning point and added value of the course has been to bring the concept of universal human rights close to everyday life and issues encountered in their neighbourhoods, away from abstract legal or political concept.

The course was organised within the Youth for Democracy programme of the Council of Europe.