My Rights Project

"My Rights" is a joint effort to carry out activities in Slovenia the area of education on children's rights, which is based on the long-term and systematic coordination of governmental organisations and NGOs in the area of knowing, implementing, and respecting the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the school environment and in the broader social environment.

The project draws on the participation of schools in creating rights-focused curriculum. A series of activities takes place at primary schools, where one children's right is dealt with every month. Teachers are offered methodological help for classwork.

In addition to these activities, the School for Peace has designed promotional material - a series of flash cards, each of which presents one children's right - which are designed to help children learn more about their rights with the help of visual cues. These flash cards were designed with the participation of children, as was a CD-ROM that makes up a kit compiled by organisers. Interactive information and communication technologies are also being used to share rights-related paedological information, such as through EIP website (in Slovenian language only).

Children, Rights.

In the first year the project reached out to 87 primary and secondary schools, 50,000 students and their parents, and 1200 teachers. The project was introduced at venues such as an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) session and in the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The institution of the Human Rights Ombudsman was introduced into the Slovenian constitutional order through the new Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, which was adopted in December 1991. On February 21 2001, a two-thirds majority of all deputies in the National Assembly elected, upon the proposal of the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Mr. Matjaž Hanžek as the second Slovene Human Rights Ombudsman, for a period of 6 years.