The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies concluded yesterday, Tuesday, its 22nd training program, or summer school, for Egyptian university and college students on fundamental human rights principles. The three-week session, which began on August 26, brought together students from 12 Egyptian governorates. The summer school was prepared by a team of six alumni from previous sessions.
Participants attended 64 training seminars, presented by 38 lecturers and trainers, on basic human rights, starting from the philosophical and historical roots of the term and including an introduction to the most significant conventions and treaties that constitute international human rights law.
The program examined the most significant civil and political rights, including the right to life, the right to bodily safety, the right of association, freedom of opinion and expression, the right of peaceful assembly, and freedom of religion and belief.
It addressed economic and social rights and the relevant international conventions in a set of training seminars on the right to education, women’s rights, children’s rights, and the rights of persons with disabilities. The session included lectures on transitional justice, security sector reform, international protection instruments at the UN, international humanitarian law, and the International Red Cross.
The program organized several field visits for participants, allowing them to visit Egyptian organizations such as the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, and the CIHRS, to acquaint themselves with the role and activities of these groups.
The program also included art workshops in which participants used the knowledge and experience gained through the seminars. This year’s workshops included a musical workshop that included hip-hop performances, as well as workshops on cartoons, photography and documentation, and street theater. The participants presented art works based on these workshops at the program’s concluding celebration.
The CIHRS has been organizing the summer school program annually since 1993, as part of its activities to spread a culture of human rights in Egypt and the Arab world among young people, motivated by its belief in the important role youth play in change. For 22 years, the human rights training program for Egyptian students has welcomed generations of young people seeking knowledge and dreaming of change: human rights defenders, activists, politicians, journalists, researchers, and others.
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