The Council of Europe and the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine are co-operating for the further development of youth policy and youth work in Ukraine. Translation of documents implementing Council of Europe standards, manuals and materials is an important component of co-operation, which contributes to the dissemination and use of Council of Europe approaches and practices in Ukraine.
The updated edition of the manual on human rights education with the participation of young people "Compass" was edited and published in Ukrainian within the framework of the Council of Europe Project "Youth for Democracy in Ukraine: Phase III".
"It is not enough for children and young people simply to hold human rights. In order to embed a human rights culture and ensure that our young people understand how to access those rights – and to uphold, defend and promote them – they need an education fit for that purpose," says the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Marija Pejčinović Burić, in the foreword to the updated edition of Compass.
The Compass Handbook was first published in 2002 as part of the Youth Human Rights Education Programme of the Council of Europe Directorate for Youth and Sport. The programme was created because human rights education includes educational programmes and exercises that promote human equality on the basis of human dignity, which has always been and is invaluable in the formation of democratic citizenship for all young people, as well as in the development of a culture of universal human rights.
For almost 20 years, the Compass manual has become a reference book for many young people involved in value-oriented youth work and non-formal education, including in Ukraine. Today, it is available in more than 30 languages, ranging from Arabic and Japanese to Icelandic and the Basque language. It is important that the Compass manual and its publications in different languages have become a kind of bridge through which human rights education has been put on the agenda of work with young people and included in the curriculum of many schools.
The Compass manual contains both theoretical chapters on human rights education, the textbook's approaches to human rights education, understanding human rights, and 60 practical exercises and methods that can be used in human rights education.
The electronic version of the Compass manual can be downloaded at the link: https://rm.coe.int/compass-2024-ukr/1680afc555
The project "Youth for Democracy in Ukraine: Phase III" is implemented within the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2023-2026 and is based on the results and experience of the projects "Youth for Democracy in Ukraine" in 2020-2022. The project expands the systematic impact by strengthening youth participation policies and strengthening youth work during the war and in the post-war context, taking into account the specific needs of young people.
