The three-day Human rights education forum: unleashing human rights, which has just concluded at the European Youth Centre in Budapest, brought more than 200 young activists, education professionals from formal and non-formal sectors, government representatives and youth leaders from civil society organisations participants.
The forum marks important milestones: 75 years of the European Convention on Human Rights, 30 years of the European youth centre Budapest, and 25 years of Compass and the Council of Europe's human-rights education youth programme.
Democracy is inseparable from human rights
Matjaž Gruden, Director for Democracy of the Council of Europe, underlined that democracy is inseparable from human rights, and that this event is an important contribution to the New Democratic Pact for Europe, a major initiative of the Council of Europe aiming at providing an effective response to democratic backsliding.
"In human rights and human-rights education, the role of young people will be essential to success. Our priority is to apply the youth perspective across all areas of public policy making. This game-changing, revolutionary approach is an investment in our collective capacity to find effective solutions to the problems we face. We will not be able to find those solutions without the specific experience, perspective, creativity, energy, disruptiveness, and impatience that young people bring", he said.
Co-organised by the Council of Europe and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for human rights, with non-governmental partners including Amnesty International and the European Youth Forum, the forum comes at a time when human rights are under unprecedented pressure worldwide, making collective thinking, dialogue, and action more essential than ever.
Innovating for democracy
The forum showcased young educators, activists and practitioners as drivers of innovation. Panel discussions, working groups and workshops explored how human-rights education can respond to today's crises and empower young people to build a culture of peace.
Nina Grmuša, chair of the Joint Council on youth, summing up the importance of the event, underlined that human-rights education is indispensable: "It turns principles into practice, translating the abstract into the everyday with empathy. It orients us when the world shifts and inspires us to live by universal human rights - with, for, and by young people. This forum brings together the community of practice that makes these rights tangible, lived, and lasting across the world."
2025 Human rights education forum - unleashing human rights
Human rights education youth programme
Compass: manual for human rights education with young people
New Democratic Pact for Europe
