Roma Versitas Albania

Pillar 1 · Education

Completed

Compass

National and regional training courses on human rights education, with the Council of Europe.

  • 25

    participants, from police officers to youth workers

  • 57

    applications for 25 places

  • 3

    months of training, April to July 2024

  • 1st

    Compass course held in Albania

The problem

Human rights education reaches the people already convinced. Reaching the institutions that Roma communities actually encounter, including the police, requires putting them in the same room.

Objectives

  • Equip participants with tools to advocate for and teach human rights
  • Build a cross-sector cohort of human rights educators

What the project did

The regional training course ran from 22 April to 24 July 2024 at the Hotel Mondial in Tirana, with financial, educational and institutional support from the Council of Europe Youth Department. It was the first Compass course held in Albania.

  • Selection. 57 people applied, 41 women and 16 men. Participants were chosen for gender balance, the quality of their application and clear plans to pass Compass on.
  • A mixed room. Youth workers, youth leaders, non-formal education trainers, teachers, students, human rights activists, government officials and police officers trained together.
  • The Compass method. The course followed the Council of Europe’s Compass manual, adapted to Albanian cases and to the participants’ own work.
  • Learning by doing. Theory was interwoven with exercises, games and discussion, using concrete cases from Albania.
  • New threats to rights. Hate speech, cyberbullying, racial profiling, police brutality, whitewashing and cultural appropriation.

Results

  • 25 participants completed the course, as planned.
  • 57 applications for 25 places.
  • 3 months of training, April to July 2024.

Impact

Participants left able to recognise human rights violations, know how to respond, and run Compass training themselves in their own towns and organisations. The course put police officers and Roma activists in the same room, learning the same material.

In pictures

  • Compass participants sitting in a wide circle in a training room at the Hotel Mondial, Tirana
    The Compass cohort, Tirana, 2024
  • A participant steps between sheets of paper laid out on the floor during an exercise
    A floor exercise on human rights
  • Three participants in discussion, one gesturing as she makes a point
    Discussion in small groups
  • Participants working in a small group in front of a wall covered with flipchart notes
    Group work
  • A small group sitting on the floor, talking through an exercise
    Working through a case
  • Participants standing together during a role-play, with sheets of paper on the floor
    A role-play
  • Four participants in conversation around a low table
    Between sessions

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